THE RATINGS
As their career progresses, marketing professionals develop their own judgements on the concepts and techniques that they use. Some they dismiss out of hand. Others become familiar, practical approaches.
The ratings in this book are my own, developed over thirty years of use. They are my opinion based on reading into them and discussing them with others. I do not expect anybody to agree with all, or many, of my opinions. I do urge all professionals, though, to develop their own view.
The criteria for my ratings are:
Practical and powerful: the highest compliment I can pay a marketing concept. Not only is it founded on good, analytical, and experiential evidence, but it works well in practice.
Practical: The evidence for these concepts are, in my opinion, primarily experiential, they need more substantiation but that doesn’t mean that they are not usable.
Merely conceptual: These are normally theoretical with little evidence of their being useful in practice. Some have been substantiated by good academic rigour and ought to be tried.
Toxic: These, if misunderstood or misapplied, can do real damage to your shareholders’ business and your career. That doesn’t mean you should not use them, but understand their limitations and their risks.
