Consumer Behavior and the Practice of Marketing

most enthusiastically received courses in a marketing curriculum. It probes the nature of intricate and sometimes mysterious forces underlying human thought and activity, and relates those forces to the excitement of a dynamically competitive marketplace. In drawing that relationship, it deals with the desires, attitudes, images, fantasies, dreams and hopes of hundreds of millions of people. But do most texts on the subject come anywhere near fulfillment of this seemingly bright potential? The author feels that at least do not, because they tend to turn a real world subject into something abstract and dull. In his book, Runyon sets out to correct this by interrelating practice and theory, to demonstrate how the former is dependent upon the latter. Does he succeed? Perhaps not as well as he promises, but perhaps better than many-or even most-of the other authors who have written texts in this field. Each chapter begins with three or four short illustrations relating concepts to be covered in the chapter to marketing practice. Most of the illustrations draw upon brief examples of advertising programs. They do a good job of demonstrating that s ch general concepts of the behavioral sciences as social class, personality and attitudes are relevant to marketing strategy. The relationship between most of these illustrations and the specific theoretical concepts presented in the book is often less convincing. In four chapters near the end, the theme switches from a primarily behavioral science orientation to a marketing management orientation. These chapters deal with the retailing structure, marketing communications, marketing research and the evaluation of advertising. They would seem to present an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the applied translations of theories and empirical data discussed in previous chapters. For the most part, however, there is rather little of this. In attempting to bring together the real world of marketing and the theoretical world of the behavioral sciences, Runyon has taken on a major challenge. That theoretical world is a welter of conflicting theories and empirical findings which are typically fragmentary or not definitively conclusive. Whether or not practitioners actually have made widespread use of behavioral theory--as academicians use the term-is doubtful. Whether or not they could make much better use of it is another matter. The author recognizes such limitations but, of course, he can't escape them. There are some topics (e.g., attitude models) where Runyon seems lacking in his coverage, and others (e.g., subliminal advertising) where his conclusions could be questioned. However, he has succeeded in writing a book that is interesting, abundantly illustrated with examples of practice, well organized, generally lively in tone and easy to read. If you are looking for a text on this subject, you'll do well to give this book your strong consideration.