New And Improved

Traces the emergence of standardized brand-name products for the mass market through corporate confrontations, shrewd financial agreements and inspirational sales programs

It is a truism that successful firms change with the times, responding to the marketplace and to the competition. This central theme is driven home with pith and historical perspective in an exhaustive, lively casebook that is especially timely in light of the reported near-bankruptcy of many of the nation's top retailers. Prime examples of companies that have lost their way, on Tedlow's scorecard, are "honest, clunky old" Sears Roebuck, too slow to adjust to a world of market segmentation and competitive discounters, and A & P, which "kept trying to sell everybody everything" with its own name-brand products while specialty stores and local chains scored big with nationally distributed brands. Harvard Business School associate professor Tedlow also draws marketing lessons in studies of how Coca-Cola bested Pepsi and how General Motors vanquished Ford, only to succumb to the disarray and entropy that grips America's industrial heartland.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this volume, Harvard business historian Tedlow charts the evolution of consumer markets in the 20th century. Using the company histories of Coca Cola, General Motors, A&P, and Sears as ongoing illustrations, the author arrives at a three-step developmental cycle of consumer markets. The cycle begins with market fragmentation, transmogrifies to mass markets, and culminates in a segmented state where individual consumer wants are king. Tedlow proposes that mass markets, driven by consumer needs, are not at all inevitable but rather are an outcome of, among other things, an entrepreneurial spirit inherent in the American character. While this book's primary appeal will be to the serious student of business history, Tedlow's readable style and provocative recounting of incidents like the Coke-Pepsi "cola wars" will provide some appeal for any thoughtful business manager. --Gene R. Laczniak, Marquette Univ., Milwaukee
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.