What is Marketing? by Alvin J. Silk

Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus harvard Business School, Boston Masachusettes.

This is the description of the book on it's cover:

"This book provides the foundation on which to begin developing the marketing skills and insights required in a wide variety of situations. It's for everyone with career interests that lead to the setting and the execution of the strategy of an organization".

When I took up Advertising in college, I learned that almost everything in commercial design has been strategically suggested by Marketing. I didn't really pay close attention to Marketing because all I wanted to do is design and illustrate. Now that I've came to realize the importance of being strategic in visual design, I have taken some steps to learn more about how to be a strategic graphic and web designer.

I have no plans to be a marketing practitioner, I just want to understand Marketing at least by definitions. Good thing is that, our company has been so supportive of learning. They provide even the things that I didn't ask for (I mean, even books that I didn't ask for). So they handed this book called "What is Marketing?".

I haven't really finished reading it but, I have found it to be a good reference, though Google has it all working for us, but when times come that I'd just like to read a book on Marketing, this is actually helpful.

"What is Marketing" is a reference to areas including Consumer behavior, Business-to-Business Markets, The Four-P's, Market Segmentation, Unique Value Propositions, Marketing Communications, and others.

These are areas that I believe a graphic designer can't easily understand, but it helps, at least to have an idea of what could be happening in the consumer level that affects the way our design is being perceived. This book gives an advantage of knowing the process of what a product or service has gone through before it reaches the working table of an artist.

Hopefully I'll be able to absorb the definitions and examples provided in this book.