Sometimes you need more then a one-sentence answer. While the term marketing generally refers to what a company does to create value for customers, practicing marketers know they have a major role in setting their company's strategic direction. Successful marketing requires a deep knowledge of customers, competitors, and collaborators-and great skill in serving customers profitably.

The book provides the foundation for developing those skills and insights. It's organized according to the design of the first-year marketing course in Harvard Business School's MBA program. Each chapter was written by HBS faculty and used by MBA students to analyze marketing opportunities and develop and execute successful marketing strategies. Areas covered include:

Harvard Business Review is the leading destination for smart management thinking. Through its flagship magazine, 13 international licensed editions, books from Harvard Business Review Press, and digital content and tools published on HBR.org, Harvard Business Review provides professionals around the world with rigorous insights and best practices to lead themselves and their organizations more effectively and to make a positive impact.

Alvin J. Silk, the faculty advisor on this volume, is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at the Harvard Business School. He served as co-chairman of the Marketing Unit and initiated a course in Brand Marketing offered in the second year of the MBA program. Silk has been at HBS since 1989. From 1968-88 he was at the Sloan School of Management, MIT, where he was Erwin Schell Professor of Management and served as Deputy Dean from 1981-87. He was a Visiting Research Associate at the Marketing Science Institute and a Ford Foundation Visiting Professor at the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, Brussels.