Strategic Marketing 9th edition by David Cravens

0073381004 9780073381008 download

https://ebookball.com/product/strategic-marketing-9th-edition-by-
david-cravens-0073381004-9780073381008-18810/

Download more ebook instantly today at https://ebookball.com

 Get Your Digital Files Instantly: PDF, ePub, MOBI and More
Quick Digital Downloads: PDF, ePub, MOBI and Other Formats

Foundations of Marketing 9th edition by William Pride, Ferrell ISBN

0357129466 978-0357129463

https://ebookball.com/product/foundations-of-marketing-9th-
edition-by-william-pride-ferrell-
isbn-0357129466-978-0357129463-21316/

Strategic Compensation A Human Resource Management Approach 9th

edition by Joseph Martocchio 013432059X 9780134320595

https://ebookball.com/product/strategic-compensation-a-human-
resource-management-approach-9th-edition-by-joseph-
martocchio-013432059x-9780134320595-20786/

Strategic Integrated Marketing Communications 4th Edition by Percy

Larry ISBN 1000842932 9781000842937

https://ebookball.com/product/strategic-integrated-marketing-
communications-4th-edition-by-percy-larry-
isbn-1000842932-9781000842937-21442/

Services Marketing People Technology Strategy 9th Edition by Jochen

Wirtz,Christopher Lovelock 9781944659813 1944659811

https://ebookball.com/product/services-marketing-people-
technology-strategy-9th-edition-by-jochen-wirtz-christopher-
lovelock-9781944659813-1944659811-21466/
International Marketing Strategy Analysis Development and
Implementation 9th edition and Implementation 9th Edition by Robin
Lowe, Isobel Doole, Alexandra Kenyon ISBN 1473778697 978-1473778696

https://ebookball.com/product/international-marketing-strategy-
analysis-development-and-implementation-9th-edition-and-
implementation-9th-edition-by-robin-lowe-isobel-doole-alexandra-
kenyon-isbn-1473778697-978-1473778696-21350/

Unfair Marketing 1st edition by David Rodnitzky 1544506643

9781544506647

https://ebookball.com/product/unfair-marketing-1st-edition-by-
david-rodnitzky-1544506643-9781544506647-21514/

Absolute Essentials of Strategic Marketing 1st edition by Tony Proctor

ISBN 0367524759 9780367524753

https://ebookball.com/product/absolute-essentials-of-strategic-
marketing-1st-edition-by-tony-proctor-
isbn-0367524759-9780367524753-21308/

Integrated Advertising Promotion and Marketing Communications 9th

edition by Kenneth Clow,Donald Baack 9781292411217 129241121X

https://ebookball.com/product/integrated-advertising-promotion-
and-marketing-communications-9th-edition-by-kenneth-clow-donald-
baack-9781292411217-129241121x-21464/

Cardiovascular Physiology 9th Edition by David Mohrman, Lois Jane

Heller 1260026116 9781260026115

https://ebookball.com/product/cardiovascular-physiology-9th-
edition-by-david-mohrman-lois-jane-
heller-1260026116-9781260026115-2916/
 Confirming Pages

Strategic
Marketing
Ninth Edition

David W. Cravens
M.J. Neeley School of Business
Texas Christian University

Nigel F. Piercy
Warwick Business School
The University of Warwick

Boston Burr Ridge, IL Dubuque, IA New York San Francisco St. Louis
Bangkok Bogotá Caracas Kuala Lumpur Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City
Milan Montreal New Delhi Santiago Seoul Singapore Sydney Taipei Toronto

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd i 12/12/07 5:19:26 PM

 Rev. Confirming Pages

STRATEGIC MARKETING
Published by McGraw-Hill/Irwin, a business unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY, 10020. Copyright © 2009, 2006, 2003, 2000, 1997, 1994, 1991, 1987, 1982 by The
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed
in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or
transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.
Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside
the United States.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 CCW/CCW 0 9 8
ISBN 978-0-07-338100-8
MHID 0-07-338100-4
Editorial director: Brent Gordon
Publisher: Paul Ducham
Managing developmental editor: Laura Hurst Spell
Editorial assistant: Sara Knox Hunter
Associate marketing manager: Dean Karampelas
Project manager: Jim Labeots
Lead production supervisor: Carol A. Bielski
Lead designer: Matthew Baldwin
Photo research coordinator: Lori Kramer
Photo researcher: PoYee Oster
Media project manager: Suresh Babu, Hurix Systems Pvt. Ltd.
Cover design: JoAnne Schopler
Cover image: © Getty Images
Typeface: 10/12 Times New Roman
Compositor: Laserwords Private Limited
Printer: Courier Westford
Page 16: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., Jill Braaten, photographer; page 51: Courtesy of Google; page 88:
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., Jill Braaten, photographer; page 117: Courtesy of ACCOR; page 135: Courtesy
of Best Buy; page 197: ©2007 Keith Eng, photographer; page 227: ©2007 Keith Eng, photographer; page 262:
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., Jill Braaten, photographer; page 290: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.,
John Flournoy, photographer; page 332: ©2007 Keith Eng, photographer; page 349: NetJets Inc.; page 385:
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., John Flournoy, photographer; page 404: AP Photo/Ben Margot; page 447: ©2007
Keith Eng, photographer; page 465: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., John Flournoy, photographer; page 482: AP
Photo/Kathy Willens
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cravens, David W.
Strategic marketing / David W. Cravens, Nigel F. Piercy.—9th ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-338100-8 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-07-338100-4 (alk. paper)
1. Marketing—Decision making. 2. Marketing—Management.
3. Marketing—Management—Case studies. I. Piercy, Nigel. II. Title.
HF5415.135.C72 2009
658.8’02—dc22 2007049708

www.mhhe.com

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd ii 12/14/07 1:13:08 PM

 Confirming Pages

To Sue and Karen

DWC
To the memory of Helena G. Piercy
(1911–2001)
NFP

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd iii 12/12/07 5:19:30 PM

 Confirming Pages

Preface
Strategic marketing in companies around the world is confronted with unprecedented chal-
lenges and exciting opportunities in the twenty-first century. Driven by demanding custom-
ers with complex value requirements, aggressive global competition, turbulent markets,
rapid emergence of disruptive new technologies, and global expansion initiatives, mar-
keting strategy has become an enterprise-spanning responsibility with major bottom-line
implications. Central to the opportunities generated by these challenges is a critical need
to improve executives’ understanding of markets and competitive space, customer value
delivery, innovation culture and processes, and effective organizational design.
Strategic marketing’s demanding role in business performance is demonstrated in the
market-driven strategies of successful organizations competing in a wide array of mar-
ket and competitive situations. Providing superior customer value, leveraging distinctive
capabilities, responding rapidly to diversity and change in the marketplace, developing
innovation cultures, and recognizing global business challenges are demanding initiatives
which require effective marketing strategies for gaining and sustaining a competitive edge.
Strategic Marketing examines the underlying logic and processes for designing and imple-
menting market-driven strategies.

Market-Driven Strategy
Providing superior value to customers is the core objective of market-driven strategy. Sev-
eral initiatives are necessary in achieving this objective.
• Marketing strategy provides the guidelines for action that are essential in delivering
superior customer value.
• Marketing is a major stakeholder in the essential organizational core processes—new
product development, customer relationship management, value/supply-chain manage-
ment, and business strategy implementation.
• Essential relationship initiatives place new priorities on collaborating with customers,
suppliers, value-chain members, and even competitors.
• Understanding customers, competitors, and the market environment requires the active
involvement of the entire organization to gain and manage market knowledge decisively.
• Developing methods that enable the organization to continually learn from customers,
competitors, and other relevant sources is vital to sustaining a competitive edge.
• The powerful technologies provided by the Internet and the World Wide Web, corporate
intranets, and advanced communication and collaboration systems for customer and
supplier relationship management underpin effective strategy processes.
• The environmental, ethical, and corporate responsibility aspects of business practice are
critical concerns for individual executives as well as their companies, requiring man-
agement direction and active involvement by the entire organization.
Customer diversity and new forms of competition create impressive growth and perfor-
mance opportunities for those firms that successfully apply strategic marketing concepts and
analyses in business strategy development and implementation. The challenge to become
market-driven is apparent in a wide array of industries around the world. Analyzing market

iv

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd iv 12/12/07 5:19:30 PM

 Confirming Pages

Preface v

behavior and matching strategies to changing conditions require a hands-on approach to

marketing strategy development and implementation. Penetrating financial analysis is an
important strategic marketing requirement.
Strategic Marketing examines marketing strategy using a combination of concepts,
application processes, and cases to develop managers’ and professionals’ decision making
processes and apply them to business situations. The book is intended for use in under-
graduate capstone marketing strategy courses and the MBA marketing core and advanced
strategy courses.

New and Expanded Scope

Regardless of business size and scope, competing in any market today requires a global
perspective. The ninth edition accentuates this global perspective. The author team pro-
vides an extensive range of global involvement. The shrinking time-and-access boundar-
ies of global markets establish new competitive requirements. The global dimensions of
marketing strategy are integrated throughout the chapters of the book and also considered
in several cases. The rapid emergence of powerful new competitive forces throughout the
world, often facilitated by new business models, mandates an international viewpoint for
executives in most organizations.
Strategic customer relationship management (CRM) is examined in a new chapter, rec-
ognizing the escalating importance of this topic in business firms and its essential role in
guiding marketing strategy. Customer equity and customer lifetime value are examined
along with other relevant aspects of CRM.
Innovation and new product planning and strategic brand management are given
increased coverage in this edition. Enhancing brand equity has become a top priority chal-
lenge in companies around the world.
Internet initiatives comprise a vital part of the marketing strategies of all companies.
Internet strategies are rapidly expanding on a global basis. Because of the nature and scope
of the various uses of the Internet, we have integrated this important topic into several
chapters rather than developing a separate chapter. Internet Features are included in all
chapters.
Special attention and emphasis are given to marketing metrics throughout the book.
Improving the measurement of marketing effectiveness is a high priority issue in many
companies.
New current applications of business marketing initiatives are included in every chap-
ter. New features examine strategy, innovations, relationship, global ethics and corporate
responsibility, Internet, and metrics aspects of business practice.

Teaching and Learning Design

Strategic Marketing uses a decision-making perspective to examine the key concepts and
issues involved in analyzing and selecting strategies. It is apparent that many instructors
want to examine marketing strategy beyond the traditional emphasis on marketing func-
tions. Marketing strategy is considered from a total business perspective. The length and
design of the book offer flexibility in the use of the text material and cases. The feature
applications included in each chapter can be used for class discussion and assignments.
The book is designed around the marketing strategy process with a clear emphasis
on analysis, planning, and implementation. Part I provides an overview of market-driven
strategy and business and marketing strategies. Part II considers markets, segments, and

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd v 12/12/07 5:19:31 PM

 Confirming Pages

vi Preface

customer value. Part III provides the basis for designing market-driven strategies. Part IV
considers market-driven program development. Finally, Part V examines implementing and
managing market-driven strategies. Decision process guidelines and applications are pro-
vided throughout the book to assist the reader in applying the analysis and strategy devel-
opment approaches discussed in the text.

The Cases
There are 21 new cases out of a total of 44. Many are well-known companies that stu-
dents should find both interesting and challenging. Shorter application-focused cases are
placed at the end of each part of the book. These cases are useful in applying the concepts
and methods discussed in the chapters, and they can be used for class discussion, hand-
in assignments, and/or class presentations. The cases consider a wide variety of business
environments, both domestic and international. They include goods and services; orga-
nizations at different value-chain levels; and small, medium, and large enterprises. The
Features in every chapter provide additional illustrations and material for consideration
and discussion.
Most of the cases examine the marketing and business strategies of well-known com-
panies. The cases are very timely, offering an interesting and challenging look at contem-
porary business practice. Importantly, these companies have available extensive financial,
product, and corporate information on the Internet, which expands analysis opportunities.
Part VI includes comprehensive cases that offer students a variety of opportunities to
apply marketing strategy concepts. Each case considers several important strategy issues.
The cases represent different competitive situations for consumer and business goods and
services as well as domestic and international markets.

Changes in the Ninth Edition

The ninth edition of Strategic Marketing follows the basic design of previous editions. Nev-
ertheless, the revision incorporates many significant changes, topic additions, and updated
examples. Every chapter includes new material and expanded treatment of important topics.
Each chapter has been revised to incorporate new concepts and examples, improve
readability and flow, and encourage reader interest and involvement. Topical coverage has
been expanded (or reduced) where appropriate, to better position the book for teaching and
learning in today’s rapidly changing business environment. An expanded set of Internet and
Feature applications is included at the end of each chapter. Marketing planning guidelines
are provided in the Chapter 1 Appendix, financial analysis suggestions are included in the
Chapter 2 Appendix, and marketing metrics are discussed in the Chapter 15 Appendix.

Teaching/Learning Resources
A complete and expanded teaching-learning portfolio is available on the Online Learn-
ing Center, at www.mhhe.com/cravens9e. It includes an Instructor’s Manual with course-
planning suggestions, answers to end-of-chapter questions, Internet application guidelines,
Feature application guidelines, and extensive instructor’s notes for each of the 44 cases.
A multiple-choice question test bank and a PowerPoint® presentation for each chapter are
also included online. The PowerPoints provide a complete and organized coverage of the
chapter topics and application examples.

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd vi 12/12/07 5:19:31 PM

 Confirming Pages

Preface vii

This edition of the manual has been substantially revised and expanded to improve its
effectiveness in supporting course planning, class discussion, and examination prepara-
tion. Detailed instructor’s notes concerning the use of the cases are provided, including
epilogues when available. The text, cases, and Instructor’s Manual offer considerable flex-
ibility in course design, depending on the instructor’s objectives and the course for which
the book is used.

Acknowledgments
The ninth edition has benefited from the contributions and experiences of many people and
organizations. Business executives and colleagues at universities in many countries have
influenced the development of Strategic Marketing. While space does not permit thank-
ing each person, a sincere note of appreciation is extended to all. We shall identify several
individuals whose assistance was particularly important.
A special thank you is extended to the reviewers of this and prior editions and to many
colleagues who have offered numerous suggestions and ideas. Throughout the develop-
ment of the ninth edition, several individuals made important suggestions for improving
the book.
We are also indebted to the case authors who gave us permission to use their cases. We
appreciate the opportunity to include them in the book. Each author or authors are specifi-
cally identified with each case.
A special note of thanks is due to the management and professional team of McGraw-
Hill/Irwin for their support and encouragement on this and prior editions of Strategic Mar-
keting: Paul Ducham, as publisher, has provided an important editorial leadership role;
Editor Laura Spell and Editorial Assistant Sara Hunter have been a constant source of
valuable assistance and encouragement; Dean Karampelas provided important marketing
direction for the project; James Labeots guided the book through the various stages of pro-
duction while Matthew Baldwin polished the design.
Students have provided various kinds of support that were essential to completing the
revision. In particular, we appreciate the excellent contribution to this edition made by
Jeremy Lamb, TCU graduate assistant. We also acknowledge the helpful comments and
suggestions of many students in our classes.
We appreciate the support and encouragement provided by Dan Short, Dean of the TCU
Neeley School of Business, and Howard Thomas, Dean of Warwick Business School. Spe-
cial thanks are due to Connie Clark at TCU and Sheila Frost at Warwick University for
their help on the manuscript and for their assistance in other aspects of the project.
David W. Cravens
Nigel F. Piercy

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd vii 12/12/07 5:19:35 PM

 Confirming Pages

About the Authors

David W. Cravens
David W. Cravens is Emeritus Professor of Marketing in the M.J. Neeley School of Busi-
ness at Texas Christian University. He previously held the Eunice and James L. West Chair
of American Enterprise Studies and was Professor of Marketing. Formerly, he was the
Alcoa Foundation Professor at the University of Tennessee, where he chaired the Depart-
ment of Marketing and Transportation and the Management Science Program. He has a
Doctorate in Business Administration and MBA from Indiana University. He holds a Bach-
elor of Science in Civil Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before
becoming an educator, Dave held various industry and government management positions.
He is internationally recognized for his research on marketing strategy and sales manage-
ment and has contributed over 150 articles and 25 books. Dave is a former editor of the
Journal of Academy of Marketing Science. He has held various positions in the American
Marketing Association and the Academy of Marketing Science. He received the Lifetime
Achievement Award from the American Marketing Association in 2002 and was selected
as the 1996 Outstanding Marketing Educator by the Academy of Marketing Science. He
serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals. He has been a visiting scholar
at universities in Austria, Australia, Chile, Czech Republic, England, Ireland, Italy, Ger-
many, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, and Wales. He
has conducted management seminars and executive briefings in many countries in Asia,
Europe, and South America. He is a frequent speaker at management development semi-
nars and industry conferences.

Nigel F. Piercy
Nigel F. Piercy is Professor of Marketing and Strategic Management at Warwick Business
School, in the University of Warwick, United Kingdom, where he also leads the Sales and
Account Management Strategy research unit. He was previously Professor of Strategic
Marketing and Head of the Marketing Group at Cranfield School of Management, and
for a number of years was the Sir Julian Hodge Chair in Marketing and Strategy at Car-
diff University. He has been a visiting scholar at Texas Christian University; University
of California, Berkeley; Fuqua School of Business, Duke University; Columbia Business
School; Athens Laboratory of Business Administration; and Vienna University of Business
and Economics. He has extensive experience in executive education and as a manage-
ment workshop speaker. He has worked with managers and business students in the United
States, Europe, the Far East, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. He holds a PhD from the Uni-
versity of Wales, an MA from Durham University Business School, and a BA from Heriot-
Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland. He has been awarded the distinction of a higher
doctorate (Doctor of Letters) from Heriot-Watt University for his published research work.
Prior to academic life, Nigel was in retail management and latterly in strategic market
planning with Nycomed Amersham plc. His research is in the areas of marketing strat-
egy and implementation, and sales management. He has published some 200 articles and
chapters and 16 books. He is editor of the Journal of Strategic Marketing and serves on the
editorial boards of several scholarly journals.

viii

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd viii 12/12/07 5:19:35 PM

 Rev. Confirming Pages

Brief Contents
PART ONE PART FOUR
Strategic Marketing 1 Market-Driven Program Development 289
1 Imperatives for Market-Driven 9 Strategic Brand Management 290
Strategy 2 10 Value Chain Strategy 318
1A Appendix Strategic Marketing 11 Pricing Strategy 347
Planning 27
12 Promotion, Advertising, and Sales
Cases for Part One 30 Promotion Strategies 372
13 Sales Force, Internet, and Direct
PART TWO Marketing Strategies 396
Markets, Segments, and Customer
Value 47 Cases for Part Four 418
2 Markets and Competitive Space 48
PART FIVE
2A Appendix Financial Analysis for Implementing and Managing Market-Driven
Marketing Planning and Control 74 Strategies 443
3 Strategic Marketing Segmentation 83 14 Designing Market-Driven
4 Strategic Customer Relationship Organizations 444
Management 113 15 Marketing Strategy Implementation
5 Capabilities for Learning About Customers and Control 473
and Markets 129 15A Appendix Marketing Metrics 499
Cases for Part Two 156 Cases for Part Five 502

PART THREE PART SIX

Designing Market-Driven Strategies 183 Comprehensive Cases 525
6 Market Targeting and Strategic
Positioning 184 INDEXES
7 Strategic Relationships 206 Name Index 765
8 Innovation and New Product Subject Index 772
Strategy 236
Cases for Part Three 269

ix

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd ix 12/24/07 12:23:20 PM

 Rev. Confirming Pages

Table of Contents
PART ONE Matching Needs with Product Benefits 52
STRATEGIC MARKETING 1 Defining and Analyzing Product-Markets 53
Forming Product-Markets 55
Chapter 1 Illustrative Product-Market Structure 57
Describing and Analyzing End-Users 57
Imperatives for Market-Driven
Identifying and Describing Buyers 58
Strategy 2 How Buyers Make Choices 59
Market-Driven Strategy 3 Environmental Influences 60
Characteristics of Market-Driven Strategies 4 Building Customer Profiles 60
Determining Distinctive Capabilities 5 Analyzing Competition 61
Classifying Capabilities 6 Defining the Competitive Arena 61
Creating Value for Customers 7 Key Competitor Analysis 64
Becoming Market Driven 7 Anticipating Competitors’ Actions 66
Corporate, Business, and Marketing Strategy 8 Market Size Estimation 67
Corporate, Business, and Marketing Strategy 10 Market Potential 67
Components of Corporate Strategy 10 Sales Forecast 68
Corporate Strategy Framework 10 Market Share 68
Business and Marketing Strategy 12 Evaluating Market Opportunity 68
The Marketing Strategy Process 13 Developing a Strategic Vision About the Future 70
Challenges of a New Era for Strategic Marketing 18 Phases of Competition 70
Escalating Globalization 18 Anticipating the Future 70
Technology Diversity and Uncertainty 19 Summary 71
The Web 2.0 20 Appendix 2A
Ethical Behavior and Corporate Social Financial Analysis for Marketing
Responsiveness 20 Planning and Control 74
Summary 23
Appendix 1A Chapter 3
Strategic Marketing Planning 27 Strategic Marketing Segmentation 83
Levels and Types of Market Segmentation 84
Cases for Part One 30 Market-Driven Strategy and Segmentation 86
Case 1-1 Audi 30 Market Segmentation, Value Opportunities, and
Case 1-2 The New York Times 34 New-Market Space 86
Case 1-3 Coca-Cola Co. (A) 40 Market Targeting and Strategic Positioning 87
Activities and Decisions in Market
PART TWO Segmentation 89
MARKETS, SEGMENTS, Defining the Market to Be Segmented 89
AND CUSTOMER VALUE 47 Identifying Market Segments 90
Segmentation Variables 90
Chapter 2 Characteristics of People and Organizations 90
Product Use Situation Segmentation 91
Markets and Competitive Space 48
Buyers’ Needs and Preferences 93
Markets and Strategies 49 Purchase Behavior 94
Markets and Strategies Are Interlinked 49 Forming Market Segments 96
Thinking Outside the Competitive Box 50 Requirements for Segmentation 96
An Array of Challenges 50 Approaches to Segment Identification 98

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd x 12/14/07 1:13:13 PM

 Rev. Confirming Pages

Contents xi

Customer Group Identification 99 Marketing Intelligence and Knowledge

Forming Groups Based on Response Differences 102 Management 147
Finer Segmentation Strategies 104 Marketing Intelligence 147
Logic of Finer Segments 104 Knowledge Management 148
Finer Segmentation Strategies 105 Role of the Chief Knowledge Officer 148
Selecting the Segmentation Strategy 106 Leveraging Customer Knowledge 148
Deciding How to Segment 106 Ethical Issues in Collecting and Using
Strategic Analysis of Market Segments 106 Information 149
Summary 109 Invasion of Customer Privacy 149
Information and Ethics 150
Chapter 4 Summary 151
Strategic Customer Relationship
Management 113 Cases for Part Two 156
Pivotal Role of Customer Relationship Case 2-1 Pfizer, Inc. 156
Management 114 Case 2-2 Ikea 162
CRM in Perspective 114 Case 2-3 China and India: Opportunities
CRM and Database Marketing 114 and Challenges 168
Customer Lifetime Value 115 Case 2-4 Johnson & Johnson 177
Developing a CRM Strategy 116
CRM Levels 116
CRM Strategy Development 118 PART THREE
CRM Implementation 119 DESIGNING MARKET-DRIVEN
Value Creation Process 121 STRATEGIES 183
Customer Value 121
Value Received by the Organization 122 Chapter 6
CRM and Value Chain Strategy 123 Market Targeting and Strategic
CRM and Strategic Marketing 123 Positioning 184
Implementation 123
Performance Metrics 124 Market Targeting Strategy 185
Short-Term Versus Long-Term Value 124 Targeting Alternatives 185
Competitive Differentiation 124 Factors Influencing Targeting Decisions 186
Summary 126 Targeting in Different Marketing
Environments 187
Chapter 5 Emerging Markets 188
Growth Markets 189
Capabilities for Learning About Customers
Mature Markets 190
and Markets 129
Global Markets 192
Market-Driven Strategy, Market Sensing, Positioning Strategy 193
and Learning Processes 130 Selecting the Positioning Concept 195
Market Sensing Processes 131 Developing the Positioning Strategy 196
Learning Organization 131 Scope of Positioning Strategy 197
Marketing Information and Knowledge Resources 134 Marketing Program Decisions 197
Scanning Processes 136 Determining Positioning Effectiveness 199
Specific Market Research Studies 138 Customer and Competitor Research 200
Internal and External Marketing Information Test Marketing 200
Resources 138 Analytical Positioning Techniques 201
Existing Marketing Information Sources 141 Determining Positioning Effectiveness 201
Creating New Marketing Information 143 Positioning and Targeting Strategies 202
Marketing and Management Information Systems 146 Summary 202

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd xi 12/14/07 1:13:14 PM

 Rev. Confirming Pages

xii Contents

Chapter 7 Product and Process Development 257

Strategic Relationships 206 Product Development Process 257
Marketing Strategy and Market Testing 260
The Rationale for Interorganizational Market Strategy Decisions 260
Relationships 207 Market Testing 260
Opportunities to Enhance Value 208 Commercialization 263
Environmental Complexity 209 The Marketing Plan 263
Competitive Strategy 209 Monitoring and Control 263
Skills and Resource Gaps 209 Variations in the Generic New Product
Evaluating the Potential for Collaboration 213 Planning Process 264
Forms of Organizational Relationships 214 Summary 265
Supplier Relationships 215
Intermediate Customer Relationships 216
End-User Customer Relationships 217 Cases for Part Three 269
Strategic Customers 217 Case 3-1 Walt Disney Co. 269
Strategic Alliances 219 Case 3-2 Intel Corp. 274
Joint Ventures 221 Case 3-3 McDonald’s Corp. 281
Internal Partnering 221 Case 3-4 Tesco Plc. 285
Managing Interorganizational Relationships 223
Objective of the Relationship 223
Relationship Management 224 PART FOUR
Partnering Capabilities 225 MARKET-DRIVEN PROGRAM
Control and Evaluation 226 DEVELOPMENT 289
Exiting from Alliance 226
Global Relationships Among Organizations 227 Chapter 9
The Strategic Role of Government 228 Strategic Brand Management 290
Summary 231
Strategic Brand Management 291
Chapter 8 The Strategic Role of Brands 291
Brand Management Challenges 292
Innovation and New Product Strategy 236
Brand Management Responsibility 296
Innovation as a Customer-Driven Process 238 Strategic Brand Management 296
Types of Innovations 239 Strategic Brand Analysis 298
Finding Customer Value Opportunities 239 Tracking Brand Performance 299
Finding New Product Opportunities 239 Product Life Cycle Analysis 300
Initiatives of Successful Innovators 242 Product Performance Analysis 300
Recognizing the Realities of Product Brand Positioning Analysis 301
Cannibalization 244 Brand Equity Measurement and Management 301
New-Product Planning 244 Measuring Brand Equity 301
Developing a Culture and Strategy for Innovation 245 Brand Health Reports 301
Developing Effective New-Product Planning Brand Identity Strategy 302
Processes 247 Alternatives for Brand Identification 302
Responsibility for New-Product Planning 248 Brand Focus 303
Idea Generation 249 Identity Implementation 304
Sources of Ideas 249 Managing Brand Strategy 304
Methods of Generating Ideas 251 Strategies for Improving Product Performance 304
Screening, Evaluating, and Business Analysis 253 Managing the Brand Portfolio 306
Screening 253 Determining Roles of Brands 307
Concept Evaluation 254 Strategies for Brand Strength 307
Business Analysis 255 Strategic Brand Vulnerabilities 308

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd xii 12/14/07 1:13:14 PM

 Confirming Pages

Contents xiii

Brand Leveraging Strategy 310 Analyzing the Pricing Situation 353

Line Extension 310 Customer Price Sensitivity 353
Stretching the Brand Vertically 310 Cost Analysis 356
Brand Extension 311 Competitor Analysis 357
Co-Branding 311 Pricing Objectives 359
Licensing 311 Selecting the Pricing Strategy 360
Global Branding 311 How Much Flexibility Exists? 360
Internet Brands 312 Price Positioning and Visibility 362
Brand Theft 313 Illustrative Pricing Strategies 362
Summary 314 Legal and Ethical Considerations 363
Determining Specific Prices and Policies 365
Chapter 10 Determining Specific Prices 365
Value Chain Strategy 318 Establishing Pricing Policy and Structure 367
Pricing Management 367
Strategic Role of Value Chain 319 Summary 369
Distribution Functions 319
Channels for Services 321 Chapter 12
Direct Distribution by Manufacturers 321
Promotion, Advertising, and Sales
Channel Strategy 323
Promotion Strategies 372
Types of Channels 324
Distribution Intensity 327 Promotion Strategy 373
Channel Configuration 328 The Composition of Promotion Strategy 373
Channel Maps 329 Designing Promotion Strategy 375
Selecting the Channel Strategy 330 Communication Objectives 376
Changing Channel Strategy 331 Deciding the Role of the Promotion Components 378
Managing the Channel 333 Determining the Promotion Budget 378
Channel Leadership 334 Promotion Component Strategies 380
Management Structure and Systems 334 Integrating and Implementing the Promotion Strategy 380
Physical Distribution Management 334 Effectiveness of Promotion Strategy 381
Channel Relationships 336 Advertising Strategy 381
Channel Globalization 336 Setting Advertising Objectives and Budgeting 382
Multichanneling 337 Creative Strategy 384
Conflict Resolution 337 Media/Scheduling Decisions 384
Channel Performance 338 Role of the Advertising Agency 386
Legal and Ethical Considerations 338 Implementing the Advertising Strategy and
International Channels 340 Measuring Its Effectiveness 388
Examining International Distribution Patterns 341 Sales Promotion Strategy 389
Factors Affecting Global Channel Selection 342 Nature and Scope of Sales Promotion 389
Global Issues Regarding Multichannel Strategies 342 Sales Promotion Activities 390
Summary 343 Advantages and Limitations of Sales Promotion 392
Sales Promotion Strategy 393
Chapter 11 Summary 393
Pricing Strategy 347
Chapter 13
Strategic Role of Price 348
Sales Force, Internet, and Direct
Price in the Positioning Strategy 349
Marketing Strategies 396
Pricing Situations 350
Roles of Pricing 350 Sales Force Strategy 397
Pricing Strategy 351 The Role of Selling in Promotion Strategy 398
Pricing Objectives 352 Types of Sales Jobs 399

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd xiii 12/12/07 5:19:39 PM

 Rev. Confirming Pages

xiv Contents

Defining the Selling Process 400 Product-Focused Design 459

Sales Channels 401 Market-Focused Design 461
Designing the Sales Organization 402 Matrix Design 461
Sales Force Evaluation and Control 407 New Marketing Roles 462
Internet Strategy 408 Organizing for Global Marketing and Global
Strategy Development 409 Customers 465
Deciding Internet Objectives 409 Organizing for Global Marketing Strategies 466
E-Commerce Strategy 410 Organizing for Global Customers 467
Value Opportunities and Risks 410 Summary 469
Measuring Internet Effectiveness 411
The Future of the Internet 411 Chapter 15
Direct Marketing Strategies 412 Marketing Strategy Implementation
Reasons for Using Direct Marketing 412 and Control 473
Direct Marketing Methods 413
Advantages of Direct Marketing 414 The Strategy Marketing Planning Process 474
Direct Marketing Strategy 415 The Marketing Plan Guides Implementation 474
Summary 415 Contents of the Marketing Plan 475
Managing the Planning Process 475
Implementing the Strategic Marketing Plan 477
Cases for Part Four 418 Implementation Process 477
Case 4-1 Microsoft Corp. 418 Building Implementation Effectiveness 478
Case 4-2 Nike Inc. 425 Internal Marketing 479
Case 4-3 Dell Inc. 433 A Comprehensive Approach to Improving
Case 4-4 Hewlett-Packard Co. 439 Implementation 481
Internal Strategy-Organization Fit 481
PART FIVE Strategic Marketing Evaluation and Control 482
Customer Relationship Management 483
IMPLEMENTING AND MANAGING
Overview of Control and Evaluation Activities 483
MARKET-DRIVEN STRATEGIES 443
The Strategic Marketing Audit 483
Marketing Performance Measurement 486
Chapter 14
The Importance of Marketing Metrics 487
Designing Market-Driven Organizations 444 The Use of Marketing Metrics 487
Trends in Organization Design 445 Types of Marketing Metrics 488
The New Organization 445 Selecting Relevant Metrics 488
Managing Organizational Process 449 Designing a Management Dashboard 489
Organizational Agility and Flexibility 451 Interpreting Performance Measurement Results 490
Employee Motivation 451 Global Issues for Planning, Implementation,
Organizing for Market-Driven Strategy 452 and Control 493
Strategic Marketing and Organization Structure 452 Global Marketing Planning 493
Aligning the Organization with the Market 452 Implementation Globally 494
Marketing Functions Versus Marketing Processes 453 Performance Measurement and Control Globally 494
Marketing as a Cross-Functional Process 454 Summary 495
Marketing Departments 456 Appendix 15A
Centralization Versus Decentralization 456 Marketing Metrics 499
Integration or Diffusion 456
Contingencies for Organizing 457 Cases for Part Five 502
Evaluating Organization Designs 457 Case 5-1 Verizon Communications Inc. 502
Structuring Marketing Resources 459 Case 5-2 Home Depot Inc. 507
Structuring Issues 459 Case 5-3 Yahoo! Inc. 514
Functional Organizational Design 459 Case 5-4 Nissan Motor Co. 519

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd xiv 12/14/07 1:13:16 PM

 Rev. Confirming Pages

Contents xv

PART SIX Case 6-14 L’Oréal Nederland B.V. 644

COMPREHENSIVE CASES Case 6-15 ESPN 652
Case 6-16 Cowgirl Chocolates 659
Case 6-17 Procter & Gamble Co. 671
Cases for Part Six 525 Case 6-18 Amazon.com Inc. 679
Case 6-1 Microsoft Corp. (B) 525 Case 6-19 Nanophase Technologies Corporation 684
Case 6-2 Samsung Electronics Co. 533 Case 6-20 Cola Wars in China 698
Case 6-3 General Electric Appliances 539 Case 6-21 Smith & Nephew—Innovex 711
Case 6-4 Slendertone 548 Case 6-22 Sun Microsystems 724
Case 6-5 Toyota 559 Case 6-23 Telus Mobility—What to Do
Case 6-6 Coca-Cola Co. (B) 566 with Mike 730
Case 6-7 Keurig Inc. 571 Case 6-24 Tri-Cities Community Bank 744
Case 6-8 Dura-plast, Inc. 584 Case 6-25 Cima Mountaineering, Inc. 750
Case 6-9 Wal-Mart 595
Case 6-10 Blair Water Purifiers India 600
Indexes
Case 6-11 Murphy Brewery Ireland, Limited 612
Case 6-12 Dairyland Seed Company 623 Name Index 765
Case 6-13 International Business Machines 633 Subject Index 772

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd xv 12/24/07 12:23:25 PM

cra81004_fm_i-xvi.indd xvi 12/12/07 5:19:41 PM
 Confirming Pages

1
Part

Strategic
Marketing

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 1 10/29/07 12:31:04 PM

 Confirming Pages

1
Chapter

Imperatives for
Market-Driven Strategy
Radical market changes, new demands for superior performance, and ever-fiercer com-
petition are rapidly escalating, and pose great challenges to executives around the world.
Even market and industry boundaries are no longer easy to define because of the entry of
new and disruptive forms of competition. Customers’ demands for superior value from the
goods and services (products) they purchase are unprecedented, as they become yet more
knowledgeable and more perceptive in the judgments they make. New phases of Internet
business models—Web 2.0 (the second generation of Internet enterprises after the Web 1.0
dot.com crashes of the early 2000s)—provide wholly new forms of competition.
External influences from diverse pressure groups and lobbyists have escalated dramati-
cally in country after country. The level of searching scrutiny of the ethical standards and
corporate responsibility initiatives has never been so high and exerts compelling influence
on decision makers in companies. In the face of this turbulence and complexity, compa-
nies adopt market-driven strategies guided by the logic that all business strategy decisions
should start with a clear understanding of markets, customers, and competitors.1 Increas-
ingly, it is clear that enhancements in customer value provide a primary route to delivering
superior shareholder value.2
Nonetheless, while it is important to recognize that the challenges are extreme, there
is huge scope for achieving business success. The risks and uncertainties have escalated,
and in many ways so have the rewards for developing strategies that deliver superior value.
Innovative Web-based businesses like Google and eBay may be prototypes, but in more
conventional industries a company like Arcelor Mittal Steel is illustrative.
From acquiring his first steel mill in Indonesia in 1976, Lakshmi Mittal has grown
Arcelor Mittal to a dominant force in the global steel business. Mittal supplies more than
30 percent of the steel used by U.S. car companies and is responsible for 10 percent of world
steel output—2006 sales were $88.5 billion. Between 1989 and 2004, Mittal made 17 deals
across the globe, buying the unwanted assets of bigger steel groups or down-at-heel state-
owned plant. Acquisitions have spanned Asia, the Caribbean, the former Eastern Europe,
the U.S. (International Steel Group and Ispat Inland), and Europe. Mittal’s business turns
around failing steel plants through a program of replacing existing management, fixing
liquidity by reestablishing credit with suppliers, improving operations, shifting production
to higher-value output, forming regional groups to boost purchasing power, and selling
off non-core subsidiaries. Importantly, Mittal’s long-term strategy was to challenge the

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 2 10/29/07 12:31:04 PM

 Confirming Pages

Chapter 1 Imperatives for Market-Driven Strategy 3

existing business model prevalent in the steel industry—conventional industry thinking

was dominated by tonnages of steel produced, not profits, and regional supply chains.
Mittal’s view was that only large steel companies could negotiate advantageously with
suppliers of iron ore and coal, and major customers such as automakers. Through a strategy
of consolidation, a rigorous program of continuous improvement, and the deployment of a
superior knowledge-sharing network across the global business, Mittal has reinvented the
steel sector and created new ways to achieve superiority in customer value and competitive
strength.3
This chapter examines three important market-driven strategy topics:
• First, we develop the theme of market-driven strategy and its pivotal role in design-
ing and implementing effective business and marketing strategies. To achieve this, we
review the characteristics of market oriented organizations, the development of distinc-
tive capabilities, and the creation of value for customers.
• Second, we look at the links between business and marketing strategy and corporate
strategy to clarify the scope of strategy and the marketing strategy process. The Appen-
dix discusses Strategic Marketing Planning.
• Lastly, to emphasize the turbulent context in which executives make strategic choices,
we explore some of the most important challenges in the modern marketplace—
escalating globalization, technological change, the Web 2.0, and the imperatives of ethi-
cal behavior and corporate social responsibility.

Market-Driven Strategy
The underlying logic of market-driven strategy is that the market and the customers that
form the market should be the starting point in business strategy. Importantly, market-
driven strategy provides a company-wide perspective, which mandates more effective
integration of activities and processes that impact customer value. The development of a
market-driven strategy is not a short-term endeavor. A considerable amount of effort is nec-
essary to build a market-driven organizational culture and processes. Also, the methods of
measuring progress extend beyond short-term financial performance measures. Certainly,
it is important that we recognize that short-term cost savings and profit enhancements may
undermine the achievement of strategic goals and the building of superior customer value.
Exhibit 1.1 summarizes the characteristics of market-driven strategies.

EXHIBIT 1.1 Becoming

Characteristics Market-
Oriented
of Market-Driven
Strategies

Achieving Determining
Superior Distinctive
Performance Capabilities

Matching
Customer
Value
Requirements
to Capabilities

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 3 10/29/07 12:31:05 PM

 Confirming Pages

4 Part One Strategic Marketing

Characteristics of Market-Driven Strategies

Becoming Market Oriented
Market orientation is a business perspective that makes the customer the focal point of
a company’s total operations. “A business is market-oriented when its culture is system-
atically and entirely committed to the continuous creation of superior customer value.”4
Importantly, achieving a market orientation involves the use of superior organizational
skills in understanding and satisfying customers.5 Becoming market-oriented requires the
involvement and support of the entire workforce. The organization must monitor rapidly
changing customer needs and wants, determine the impact of these changes on customer
behavior, increase the rate of product innovation, and implement strategies that build the
organization’s competitive advantage.
A market-oriented organization continuously gathers information about customers,
competitors, and markets; views the information from a total business perspective; decides
how to deliver superior customer value; and takes actions to provide value to customers.6
Importantly, these initiatives involve cross-functional participation. Market orientation
requires participation by everyone in the organization. An organization that is market ori-
ented has both a culture committed to providing superior customer value and processes for
creating value for buyers. Market orientation requires a customer focus, competitor intel-
ligence, and cross-functional cooperation and involvement. This initiative extends beyond
the marketing function in an organization.
Customer Focus
The marketing concept has proposed customer focus for half a century, yet until the 1990s
this emphasis had limited impact on managers as a basis for managing a business.7 There
are many similarities between the marketing concept and market orientation, although the
former implies a functional (marketing) emphasis. The important difference is that market
orientation is more than a philosophy since it consists of a process for delivering customer
value. The market-oriented organization understands customers’ preferences and require-
ments and effectively deploys the skills and resources of the entire organization to satisfy
customers. Becoming customer-oriented requires finding out what values buyers want to
help them satisfy their purchasing objectives.
Competitor Intelligence
A market-oriented organization recognizes the importance of understanding its competi-
tion as well as the customer:
The key questions are which competitors, and what technologies, and whether target custom-
ers perceive them as alternate satisfiers. Superior value requires that the seller identify and
understand the principal competitors’ short-term strengths and weaknesses and long-term
capabilities and strategies.8
Failure to identify and respond to competitive threats can create serious consequences
for a company. For example, Polaroid’s management did not define its competitive area as
all forms of photography, concentrating instead on its instant photo monopoly position,
and eventually the company was outflanked by digital photography. Had Polaroid been
market oriented its management might have better understood the changes taking place,
recognized the competitive threat, and developed strategies to counter the threat. Instead,
the company filed for bankruptcy.
Cross-Functional Coordination
Market-oriented companies are effective in getting all business functions working together
to provide superior customer value. These organizations are successful in removing the

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 4 10/29/07 12:31:06 PM

 Confirming Pages

Chapter 1 Imperatives for Market-Driven Strategy 5

walls between business functions—marketing talks with research and development and
finance. Cross-functional teamwork guides the entire organization toward providing supe-
rior customer value.

Performance Implications
Companies that are market oriented begin strategic analysis with a penetrating view of the
market and competition. Moreover, an expanding body of research findings points to a pos-
itive relationship between market orientation and superior performance.9 Companies that
are market oriented display favorable organizational performance, compared to companies
that are not market oriented. The positive market orientation/performance relationship has
been found in several United States, European, and Asian studies.

Determining Distinctive Capabilities

Identifying an organization’s distinctive capabilities (competencies) is a vital part of market-
driven strategy. “Capabilities are complex bundles of skills and accumulated knowledge,
exercised through organizational processes, that enables firms to coordinate activities and
make use of their assets.”10 The major components of distinctive capabilities are shown in
Exhibit 1.2, using Southwest Airlines’ business model to illustrate each component. The
airline’s growth and financial performance are impressive. In 2007, Southwest reported its

EXHIBIT 1.2 Organizational Processes

Distinctive
Capabilities at Southwest pioneered a point-to-point route system contrasting with the
Southwest Airlines hub-and-spoke design used by many conventional airlines.
The value proposition consists of low fares and limited services (e.g., no in-flight meals).
Sources: Wendy Zellner,
Major emphasis throughout the organization is on building a loyal customer base.
“Dressed to Kill,” Business-
Week, February 21, 2005, Operating costs are kept low by using a single aircraft type, minimizing the time
58–59. Doug Cameron, between a plane landing and taking off, no assigned seating, and developing strong
“Southwest Seeks New Sources
of Passenger Revenue,”
customer loyalty (lower selling costs).
Financial Times, Friday, April The business model is characterized by “keeping it simple.”
20, 2007, 24.
Skills and Accumulated Knowledge
Southwest has developed impressive skills in operating its business model at very
low cost.
Accumulated knowledge has guided management in improving its business design
over time.
The business model is being leveraged to drive more non-flying revenue, such as
hotel booking from its web site and charging for a broader array of services.
Additional directions identified include carrying more cargo, international flights
and alliances with other carriers, and in-flight Internet services.
Coordination of Activities
Coordination of activities is facilitated by the point-to-point business model.
High aircraft utilization, simplification of functions, and limited passenger services
enable management efficiency, and the provision of on-time, point-to-point services
offered on a frequent basis.
Assets
Very low operating costs.
Loyal customer base.
High employee esprit de corps.

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 5 10/29/07 12:31:06 PM

 Confirming Pages

6 Part One Strategic Marketing

64th straight quarter of profitability, a record unmatched in the airline sector. The pioneer
of “no frills” flying, the airline now carries more domestic passengers than any other U.S.
airline.
An organization’s capabilities are not a particular business function, asset, or individual,
and instead, consist of core processes of the organization. Michael Porter indicates that
“the essence of strategy is in the activities—choosing to perform activities differently or
to perform different activities than rivals.”11 His concept of activity networks is consistent
with viewing distinctive capabilities as groupings of skills and accumulated knowledge,
applied through organizational processes. Mittal Steel’s ability to turn around outdated
steel mills and to globalize sales is illustrative.
Organizational capabilities and organizational processes are closely related:
. . . it is the capability that enables the activities in a business process to be carried out. The
business will have as many processes as are necessary to carry out the natural business
activities defined by the stage in the value chain and the key success factors in the market.12

Classifying the organization’s capabilities is useful in identifying distinctive capabilities.

As shown in Exhibit 1.3, one way of classification is to determine whether processes
operate from outside the business to inside, inside out, or spanning processes. The processes
shown are illustrative rather than a complete enumeration of processes. Moreover, since a
company may have unique capabilities, the intent is not to identify a generic inventory of
processes.

Classifying Capabilities
The process capabilities shown in Exhibit 1.3 differ in purpose and focus.13 The outside-in
processes connect the organization to the external environment, providing market feedback
and forging external relationships. The inside-out processes are the activities necessary
to satisfy customer value requirements (e.g., manufacturing/operations). The outside-in
processes play a key role in offering direction for the spanning and inside-out capabilities,
which respond to the customer needs and requirements identified by the outside-in
processes. Market sensing, customer linking, channel bonding (e.g., producer/retailer
relationships), and technology monitoring provide vital information for new product
opportunities, service requirements, and competitive threats.

EXHIBIT 1.3 EXTERNAL INTERNAL

Classifying EMPHASIS EMPHASIS
Capabilities
Source: Chart from George Outside-In Inside-Out
S. Day, “The Capabilities of Processes Processes
Market-Driven Organizations,”
Journal of Marketing, October
1994, 41. Reprinted with Spanning Processes
permission of the American
Marketing Association.
Market sensing Customer order fulfillment Financial management
Customer linking Pricing Cost control
Channel bonding Purchasing Technology development
Technology monitoring Customer service delivery Integrated logistics
New-product/service Manufacturing/transformation
development processes
Strategy development Human resources
management
Environmental health
and safety

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 6 10/29/07 12:31:06 PM

 Confirming Pages

Chapter 1 Imperatives for Market-Driven Strategy 7

The organizational process view of distinctive capabilities requires shifting away from
the traditional specialization of business functions (e.g., operations, marketing, research
and development) toward a cross-functional process perspective.14

Capabilities and Customer Value

Value for buyers consists of the benefits and costs resulting from the purchase and use
of products. Value is perceived by the buyer. Superior value occurs when there are posi-
tive net benefits. A company needs to pursue value opportunities that match its distinctive
capabilities. A market-oriented company uses its market sensing processes, shared diagno-
sis, and cross-functional decision making to identify and take advantage of superior value
opportunities. Management must determine where and how it can offer superior value,
directing these capabilities to customer groups (market segments) that result in a favorable
competency/value match.

Creating Value for Customers

Intense global competition and the increasing demands of ever-more sophisticated custom-
ers make the creation of customer value an important challenge for managers. We take a
closer look at the concept of customer value, and consider how value is generated.

Customer Value
Offering superior customer value is at the core of business design at companies as diverse
as Google, Mittal Steel, and Southwest Airlines. Buyers form value expectations and decide
to purchase goods and services based on their perceptions of products’ benefits less the
total costs incurred.15 Customer satisfaction indicates how well the product use experience
compares to the buyer’s value expectations. Superior customer value results from a very
favorable use experience compared to expectations and the value offerings of competitors.

Providing Value to Customers

As discussed earlier, the organization’s distinctive capabilities are used to deliver value by
differentiating the product offer, offering lower prices relative to competing brands, or a
combination of lower cost and differentiation.16 Deciding which avenue to follow requires
matching capabilities to the best value opportunities. Kodak’s innovative approach to pric-
ing the ink cartridges for its latest printers challenges industry conventions. Competitors
price printers low, but charge high prices for ink cartridges (in some cases as much for the
cartridge as the printer it fits). Kodak EasyShare printers cost more, but the ink cartridges
are substantially cheaper than competitors’. Kodak’s gamble is to attract high-volume users
by offering them better value, leaving low-volume users to the competition.17
Nonetheless, there is an important distinction between value and innovation. An Econo-
mist Intelligence Unit Report included interviews with executives from many leading com-
panies throughout the world: “What counts, conclude the participants, is value innovation.
This is defined as creating new value propositions . . . that lead to increased customer
satisfaction, loyalty, and—ultimately—sustainable, profitable growth. Market leaders are
just that—pioneers.”18

Becoming Market Driven

The discussion so far points to the importance of becoming market oriented, leveraging
distinctive capabilities, and finding a good match between customers’ value requirements
and the organization’s capabilities. The supporting logic for these actions is that they are
expected to lead to superior customer value and organizational performance. Research
evidence indicates that these characteristics are present in market-driven organizations,

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 7 10/29/07 12:31:07 PM

 Confirming Pages

8 Part One Strategic Marketing

which display higher performance than their counterparts that are not market driven. A
market-driven organization must identify which capabilities to develop and which invest-
ment commitments to make. Market orientation research and evolving business strategy
paradigms point to the importance of market sensing and customer linking capabilities in
achieving successful market-driven strategies.19
Market Sensing Capabilities
Market-driven companies have effective processes for learning about their markets. Sens-
ing involves more than collecting information. It must be shared across functions and
interpreted to determine what actions need to be initiated. Mittal’s global intranet links
managers and generates valuable information for diagnosis and action in performance
improvement. Developing an effective market sensing capability is not a simple task. Vari-
ous information sources must be identified and processes developed to collect and analyze
the information. Information technology plays a vital role in market sensing activities.
Different business functions have access to useful information and need to be involved in
market sensing activities.
Customer Linking Capabilities
There is substantial evidence that creating and maintaining close relationships with cus-
tomers is important in market-driven strategies.20 These relationships offer advantages to
both buyer and seller through information sharing and collaboration. Customer linking
also reduces the possibility of a customer shifting to another supplier. Customers are valu-
able assets.
Quintiles Transnational has very effective customer linking capabilities.21 Its drug test-
ing and sales services are available in more than 50 countries. The company has exten-
sive experience in clinical trials and marketing. Quintiles’ customers are drug companies
located in many countries around the world. Ongoing collaborative relationships are essen-
tial to Quintiles’ success. It offers specialized expertise, assisting drug producers to reduce
the time necessary in developing and testing new drugs. Quintiles helped develop or com-
mercialize every one of the world’s top 30 best-selling drugs.
Aligning Structure and Processes
Becoming market driven may require changing the design of the organization, placing
more emphasis on cross-functional processes. Market orientation and process capabili-
ties require cross-functional coordination and involvement. Many companies have made
changes in organization structures and processes as a part of their customer value initia-
tives. The changes include improving existing processes as well as redesigning processes.
Primary targets for reengineering are sales and marketing, customer relationship manage-
ment, order fulfillment, and distribution. The objectives of the business process changes
are to improve the overall level of product quality, reduce costs, and improve service
delivery. Underpinning such changes and initiatives is the importance of what has been
called “implementation capabilities,” or the ability of an organization to execute and sus-
tain market-driven strategy, and do so on a global basis.22 In addition to formulating the
strategies essential to delivering superior customer value, it is vital to adopt a thorough and
detailed approach to strategy implementation.

Corporate, Business, and Marketing Strategy

Business and marketing strategies are being renewed by executives in a wide range
of companies, in their efforts to survive and prosper in an increasingly complex
and demanding business environment. Choosing high performance strategies in this

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 8 10/29/07 12:31:07 PM

 Confirming Pages

Strategy Feature Turmoil in the Computer Industry

Some conventional wisdom suggests that the era of the Personal Computer (PC) is over—it
is yesterday’s computing platform. Nonetheless, PC sales have grown from 50 million a
year to 200 million in the past decade and are still rising.
The real change occupying executives in this sector is more subtle. It is a shift in the
“eco-system” of the PC business. The days of the established purchase process of picking
your PC from the Dell website, as the one with the most powerful Intel processor you can
afford, and then loading Microsoft’s Windows XP and Office package may be over.
To establish dominance in the PC world, the Big Three—Dell, Intel, and Microsoft—
relied on mutually supportive business models. Microsoft added features to software to
encourage upgrades. Intel made faster chips to handle the new software, and Dell used
its direct sales model to sell cheaper boxes. This has become a recipe for bloated software,
inefficient chips, and poor service.
The result is that Microsoft is being outpaced by Google software, AMD has come up
with better chips than Intel, forcing Intel to change course, and Dell is trying to look more
like Apple by opening stores and selling Dell computers in Wal-Mart. Dell has ended an
exclusive deal with Intel to use AMD chips in some products and to load Google software
on Dell PCs. Dell is looking to use acquisitions and partnerships to develop into a computer
services business with less dependence on hardware sales.
It is new competitors who have found ways of making more money from the PC plat-
form that was thought to be securely in the hands of the Big Three.
Sources: Adapted from Richard Waters, “Computer Pack Top Dogs Lose Their Bite,” Financial Times, Monday
June 5, 2006, p.19. Kevin Allison and Chris Nuttall, “Dell To Sell Its Computers At Wal-Mart,” Financial Times,
Friday May 25, 2007. Kevin Allison, “Dell To Target Indirect Sales,” Financial Times, May 17, 2007, p.17. Maija
Palmer and Kevin Allison, “Dell Plans More Emphasis on Services,” Financial Times, Wednesday June 6, 2007, 26.

environment of constant change requires vision, sound strategic logic, and commit-
ment. Market-driven organizations develop closely coordinated business and marketing
strategies. Executives in many companies are reinventing their business models with
the objective of improving their competitive advantage. These changes include alter-
ing market focus, expanding product scope, partnering with other organizations, out-
sourcing manufacturing, and modifying internal structure. The capacity for continuous
reconstruction requires innovation with respect to the organizational values, processes,
and behaviors that systematically favor perpetuating the past rather than innovation for
renewal.23
The transformation of the personal computer marketplace from the dominance of Dell,
Intel, and Microsoft by the superior value offered by competitors like AMD in chips and
Google in software, and the radical strategic changes required of the established competi-
tors, are illustrative of competitive revolution. This competitive turmoil is described in the
STRATEGY FEATURE.
Conventionally, we distinguish between corporate, business, and marketing strategy
as shown in Exhibit 1.4. Corporate strategy consists of deciding the scope and purpose
of the business, its objectives, and the initiatives and resources necessary to achieve
the objectives. Business and marketing strategy is guided by the decisions top man-
agement makes about how, when, and where to compete. This should be a two-way
relationship—while corporate strategy defines strategic direction, allocates resources,
and defines constraints on what cannot be done, executives responsible for marketing
strategy have a responsibility to inform corporate strategists about external change
in the market that identifies opportunities and threats. We will examine each level or
approach to strategy in turn, before describing and illustrating the marketing strategy
process in more detail.
9

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 9 10/29/07 12:31:07 PM

 Confirming Pages

10 Part One Strategic Marketing

EXHIBIT 1.4
Corporate, Business, Corporate
Strategy
and Marketing
Strategy

Strategic Direction
Resources
Constraints Market Knowledge
Opportunities
Threats

Business and
Marketing
Strategy

Corporate, Business, and Marketing Strategy

Corporate strategy consists of the decisions made by top management and the resulting
actions taken to achieve the objectives set for the business. The major corporate strategy
components are shown in Exhibit 1.5. Scope is concerned with resolving questions about
the business the firm should be in, where it should focus, and its enduring strategic pur-
pose. Corporate objectives indicate the dimensions of performance upon which to focus
and the levels of achievement required. Corporate strategies are concerned with how the
company can achieve its growth objectives in current or new business areas. Resource
allocation addresses the division of limited resources across businesses and opportuni-
ties. Synergies highlight competencies, resources, and capabilities that drive efficiency and
effectiveness in the business. Essential to corporate success is matching the capabilities of
the organization with opportunities to provide long-term superior customer value.

Components of Corporate Strategy

It is apparent that in the 21st century marketing environments, companies are drastically
altering their business and marketing strategies to get closer to their customers, counter
competitive threats, and strengthen competitive advantages. Challenges to management
include escalating international competition, new types and sources of competition,
political and economic upheaval, dominance of the customer, and increasing marketing
complexity. These challenges create imperatives for organizational change, which may
sometimes be radical.

Corporate Strategy Framework

A useful basis for examining corporate strategy consists of (1) management’s long-term
vision for the corporation; (2) objectives which serve as milestones toward the vision;
(3) resources; (4) businesses in which the corporation competes; (5) structure, systems,
and processes; and (6) gaining corporate advantage through multimarket activity.24

EXHIBIT 1.5
Components of Scope, Mission,
Corporate Resource
Corporate Strategy and Strategic Strategy Synergies
Objectives Allocation
Intent

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 10 10/29/07 12:31:07 PM

 Confirming Pages

Chapter 1 Imperatives for Market-Driven Strategy 11

Deciding Corporate Vision

Management’s vision defines what the corporation is and what it does and provides impor-
tant guidelines for managing and improving the corporation. Strategic choices about
where the firm is going in the future—choices that take into account company capabilities,
resources, opportunities, and problems—establish the vision of the enterprise. Developing
strategies for sustainable competitive advantage, implementing them, and adjusting the
strategies to respond to new environmental requirements is a continuing process. Managers
monitor the market and competitive environment. Early in the strategy-development proc-
ess management needs to define the vision of the corporation. It is reviewed and updated as
shifts in the strategic direction of the enterprise occur over time.
Top management vision may be radical and sometimes involves risks. While Amazon.com
initially promised to revolutionize retailing with its online operations, founder Jeff Bezos
wants to transform Amazon into a digital utility—running customers’ business logistics and
processes using the same state-of-the-art technologies and operations that power Amazon’s
own online retailing. Amazon is renting out resources it uses to run its own business and has
even allowed outside programmers access to its pricing and product data.25

Objectives
Objectives need to be set so that the performance of the enterprise can be gauged. Corpo-
rate objectives may be established in the following areas: marketing, innovation, resources,
productivity, social responsibility, and finance.26 Examples include growth and market-
share expectations, product quality improvement, employee training and development,
new-product targets, return on invested capital, earnings growth rates, debt limits, energy
reduction objectives, and pollution standards. Objectives are set at several levels in an
organization beginning with those indicating the enterprise’s overall objectives. The time
frame necessary for strategic change often goes beyond short-term financial reporting
requirements. Companies are using more than financial measures to evaluate longer-term
strategic objectives, and non-financial measures for short-term budgets.

Resources
It is important to place a company’s strategic focus on its resources—assets, skills, and
capabilities.27 These resources may offer the organization the potential to compete in dif-
ferent markets, provide significant value to end-user customers, and create barriers to
competitor duplication. We know that distinctive capabilities are important in shaping the
organization’s strategy. A key strategy issue is matching capabilities to market opportuni-
ties. Capabilities that can be leveraged into different markets and applications are par-
ticularly valuable. For example, the GoreTex high performance fabric is used in many
applications from apparel to dental floss.

Business Composition
Defining the composition of the business provides direction for both corporate and market-
ing strategy design. In single-product firms that serve one market, it is easy to determine the
composition of the business. In many other firms it is necessary to separate the business into
parts to facilitate strategic analyses and planning. When firms are serving multiple markets
with different products, grouping similar business areas together aids decision-making.
Business segment, group, or division designations are used to identify the major areas
of business of a diversified corporation. Each segment, group, or division often contains a
mix of related products (or services), though a single product can be assigned such a desig-
nation. Some firms may establish subgroups of related products within a business segment
that are targeted to different customer groups.

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 11 10/29/07 12:31:08 PM

 Confirming Pages

12 Part One Strategic Marketing

A business segment, group, or division is often too large in terms of product and market
composition to use in strategic analysis and planning, so it is divided into more specific
strategic units. A popular name for these units is the Strategic Business Unit (SBU). Typi-
cally SBUs display product and customer group similarities. A strategic business unit is a
single product or brand, a line of products, or a mix of related products that meets a com-
mon market need or a group of related needs, and the unit’s management is responsible
for all (or most) of the basic business functions. Typically, the SBU has a specific strategy
rather than a shared strategy with another business area. It is a cohesive organizational unit
that is separately managed and produces sales and profit results.
For example, part of the remarkable strategic turnaround at Hewlett-Packard involved
restructuring choices made in 2005 by incoming CEO Mark Hurd. He reversed his pred-
ecessor’s merge of the computer and printer divisions, on the grounds that smaller, more
focused business units would perform better than larger, more diffused alternatives, and
separated the computer and printer units.28
In a business that has two or more strategic business units, decisions must be made at
two levels. Corporate management must first decide what business areas to pursue and set
priorities for allocating resources to each SBU. The decision makers for each SBU must
select the strategies for implementing the corporate strategy and producing the results that
corporate management expects. Corporate-level management is often involved in assisting
SBUs to achieve their objectives.

Structure, Systems, and Processes

This aspect of strategy considers how the organization controls and coordinates the activi-
ties of its various business units and staff functions.29 Structure determines the composi-
tion of the corporation. Systems are the formal policies and procedures that enable the
organization to operate. Processes consider the informal aspects of the organization’s
activities. Strategic choices provide the logic for different structure, systems, and process
configurations.
The logic of how the business is designed is receiving considerable attention. “A business
design is the totality of how a company selects its customers, defines and differentiates its
offerings, defines the tasks it will perform itself and those it will outsource, configures its
resources, goes to market, creates utility for customers, and captures profit.”30 The business
design (or business model) provides a focus on more than the product and/or technology,
instead looking at the processes and relationships that comprise the design.

Business and Marketing Strategy

Many strategy guidelines are offered by consultants, executives, and academics to guide
business strategy formulation. These strategy paradigms propose a range of actions includ-
ing re-engineering the corporation, total quality management, building distinctive compe-
tencies, reinventing the organization, supply chain strategy, and strategic partnering. It is
not feasible to review the various strategy concepts and methods that are available in many
books, seminars, and consulting services. The corporate strategy framework presented here
offers a basis for incorporating relevant strategy perspectives and guidelines.
An important issue is whether selecting a successful strategy has a favorable impact on
results. Does the uncontrollable environment largely determine business performance or
instead, will the organization’s strategy have a major impact on its performance? The evi-
dence suggests that strategic choices matter.31 While environmental factors such as market
demand, intensity of competition, government, and social change influence corporate per-
formance, the strategic choices made by specific companies also have a significant impact
on their performance. Importantly, the impact may be positive or negative. For example,

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 12 10/29/07 12:31:08 PM

 Confirming Pages

Chapter 1 Imperatives for Market-Driven Strategy 13

Kmart held the leading market position over Wal-Mart in 1980, yet Wal-Mart overtook
Kmart by investing heavily in information systems and distribution to develop a powerful
customer-driven, low-cost retail network. Kmart declared bankruptcy in early 2002, and
was sold for less than $1 billion.

Business and Marketing Strategy Relationships

An understanding of business purpose, scope, objectives, resources, and strategy is essen-
tial in designing and implementing marketing strategies that are consistent with the cor-
porate and business unit plan of action. The chief marketing executive’s business strategy
responsibilities include (1) participating in strategy formulation and (2) developing mar-
keting strategies that are consistent with business strategy priorities and integrated with
other functional strategies. Since these two responsibilities are closely interrelated, it is
important to examine marketing’s role and functions in both areas to gain more insight into
marketing’s responsibilities and contributions. Peter F. Drucker described this role:
Marketing is so basic that it cannot be considered a separate function (i.e., a separate skill or
work) within the business, on a par with others such as manufacturing or personnel. Market-
ing requires separate work and a distinct group of activities. But it is, first, a central dimen-
sion of the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final
result, that is, from the customer’s point of view.32

Frederick E. Webster describes the role of the marketing manager: “At the corporate
level, marketing managers have a critical role to play as advocates for the customer and for
a set of values and beliefs that put the customer first in the firm’s decision making, and to
communicate the value proposition as part of that culture throughout the organization, both
internally and in its multiple relationships and alliances.”33 This role includes assessing
market attractiveness in the markets available to the firm, providing a customer orientation,
and communicating the firm’s specific value advantages.

Strategic Marketing
Marketing strategy consists of the analysis, strategy development, and implementation of
activities in: developing a vision about the market(s) of interest to the organization, select-
ing market target strategies, setting objectives, and developing, implementing, and manag-
ing the marketing program positioning strategies designed to meet the value requirements
of the customers in each market target.
Strategic marketing is a market-driven process of strategy development, taking into
account a constantly changing business environment and the need to deliver superior cus-
tomer value. The focus of strategic marketing is on organizational performance rather than
a primary concern about increasing sales. Marketing strategy seeks to deliver superior
customer value by combining the customer-influencing strategies of the business into a
coordinated set of market-driven actions. Strategic marketing links the organization with
the environment and views marketing as a responsibility of the entire business rather than
a specialized function.

The Marketing Strategy Process

The marketing strategy analysis, planning, implementation, and management process that
we follow is described in Exhibit 1.6. The strategy stages shown are examined and applied
through the later parts of this book. Markets, segments and customer value consider
market and competitor analysis, market segmentation, strategic customer relationship
management, and continuous learning about markets. Designing market-driven strategy
examines customer targeting and positioning strategies, marketing relationship strategies,

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 13 10/29/07 12:31:08 PM

 Confirming Pages

14 Part One Strategic Marketing

EXHIBIT 1.6 Markets,

Marketing Strategy segments and
customer
Process
value

Implementing
Designing
and managing
market-driven
market-driven
strategies
strategies

Market-driven
program
development

and innovation and new product strategy. Market-driven program development consists
of brand, value-chain, pricing, and promotion and selling strategies designed and imple-
mented to meet the value requirements of targeted buyers. Implementing and managing
market-driven strategies considers organizational design and marketing strategy imple-
mentation and control.
Markets, Segments, and Customer Value
Marketing management evaluates markets and customers to guide the design of a new
strategy or to change an existing strategy. Analysis is conducted on a regular basis after
the strategy is underway to evaluate strategy performance and identify needed strategy
changes. Activities include:
• Markets and Competitive Space. Markets need to be defined so that buyers and com-
petition can be analyzed. A product-market consists of a specific product (or line of
related products) that can satisfy a set of needs and wants for the people (or organi-
zations) willing and able to purchase it. The objective is to identify and describe the
buyers, understand their preferences for products, estimate the size and rate of growth
of the market, and find out what companies and products are competing in the market.
Evaluation of competitors’ strategies, strengths, limitations, and plans is a key aspect of
this analysis.
• Strategic Market Segmentation. Market segmentation offers an opportunity for an
organization to focus its business capabilities on the requirements of one or more
groups of buyers. The objective of segmentation is to examine differences in needs
and wants and to identify the segments (subgroups) within the product-market of
interest. The segments are described using the various characteristics of people, the
reasons that they buy or use certain products, and their preferences for certain brands
of products. Likewise, segments of industrial product-markets may be formed accord-
ing to the type of industry, the uses for the product, frequency of product purchase,
and various other factors. The similarities of buyers’ needs within a segment enable
better targeting of the organization’s capabilities to buyers with corresponding value
requirements.
• Strategic Customer Relationship Management. A strategic perspective on Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) emphasizes delivering superior customer value by
personalizing the interaction between the customer and the company and achieving the

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 14 10/29/07 12:31:08 PM

 Confirming Pages

Chapter 1 Imperatives for Market-Driven Strategy 15

coordination of complex organizational capabilities around the customer. CRM aims to

increase the value of a company’s customer base by developing better relationships with
customers and retaining their business. CRM can play a vital role in market targeting
and positioning strategies. Since CRM is an enterprise-spanning initiative, it needs to
be carefully integrated with marketing strategy.
• Capabilities for Continuous Learning About Markets. Understanding markets and
competition has become a necessity in modern business. Sensing what is happening
and is likely to occur in the future is complicated by competitive threats that may exist
beyond traditional industry boundaries. Managers and professionals in market-driven
firms are able to sense what is happening in their markets, develop business and market-
ing strategies to seize opportunities and counter threats, and anticipate what the market
will be like in the future. Several market sensing methods are available to guide the col-
lection and analysis of information.

Designing Market-Driven Strategies

Evaluating markets, segments, and customer value drivers at the outset of the marketing
strategy process identifies market opportunities, defines market segments, evaluates com-
petition, and assesses the organization’s strengths and weaknesses. Market sensing infor-
mation plays a key role in designing marketing strategy, which includes market targeting
and positioning strategies, building marketing relationships, and developing and introduc-
ing new products (goods and services).
• Market Targeting and Strategic Positioning. A core issue is deciding how, when, and
where to compete, given a firm’s market and competitive environment. The purpose of
market targeting strategy is to select the people (or organizations) that management
wishes to serve in the product-market. When buyers’ needs and wants vary, the market
target is usually one or more segments of the product-market. Once the segments are
identified and their relative importance to the firm determined, the targeting strategy
is selected. The objective is to find the best match between the value requirements of
each segment and the organization’s distinctive capabilities. The targeting decision is
the focal point of marketing strategy since targeting guides the setting of objectives
and developing a positioning strategy. Examples of market target objectives are desired
levels of sales, market share, customer retention, profit contribution, and customer satis-
faction. Positioning strategy is the combination of the product, value chain, price, and
promotion strategies a firm uses to position itself against its key competitors in meeting
the needs and wants of the market target. The strategies and tactics used to gain a favo-
rable position are called the marketing mix or the marketing program. The positioning
strategy seeks to position the brand in the eyes and mind of the buyer and distinguish
the product from the competition. The product, distribution, price, and promotion strat-
egy components make up a bundle of actions that are used to influence buyers’ position-
ing of a brand.
• Strategic Relationships. Marketing relationship partners may include end-user custom-
ers, marketing channel members, suppliers, competitor alliances, and internal teams. The
driving force underlying these relationships is that a company may enhance its ability to
satisfy customers and cope with a rapidly changing business environment through col-
laboration of the parties involved. Building long-term relationships with customers and
value chain partners offers companies a way to provide superior customer value. Strategic
partnering has become an important strategic initiative for many well-known companies
and brands. Many firms outsource the manufacturing of their products. Strong relation-
ships with outsourcing partners are vital to the success of these powerful brands.

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 15 10/29/07 12:31:08 PM

 Rev. Confirming Pages

Innovation Feature The Growth of the Blackberry

The Canadian company, Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM), achieved remarkable success with
the BlackBerry product range—cell phones with wireless e-mail capabilities. It took RIM
from 1997 to early 2004 to sign up the first million users, but by 2007 BlackBerry had
12 millions users worldwide. However, the potential market is estimated at 400–800 million
users.
The design and functionality of BlackBerry made RIM the market leader in personal dig-
ital assistants (PDAs), overtaking more established players like Palm, Hewlett-Packard and
Dell. BlackBerry software has been licensed to most of
the world’s largest cell phone handset makers, includ-
ing Nokia.
RIM achieved an important first-mover advantage
with BlackBerry. The brand has become an icon—
with its own nickname “The CrackBerry” because of
its addictive nature, and its own malady “BlackBerry
Thumb” referring to the penalty for over-use of the
small keyboard.
While further designs have been launched—the
BlackBerry Pearl, for example—the challenge is to stay
ahead of aggressive competitors from across the tech
industry, including Nokia, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Good
Technology, and Microsoft. There is a danger that
e-mail may become standard on all cell phones.
RIM’s strategy is to accept that the vast majority of handhelds for e-mail and other serv-
ices will be made by competitors, and to stake out leadership in software and services:
• Licensing software to phone and handheld manufacturers
• Working with the carriers to push its devices and others using its software
• Offering software and services to allow companies to offer their own services or software
applications on a BlackBerry device.
Sources: Heather Green and Cliff Edwards, “The Squeeze on BlackBerry,” BusinessWeek, December 6,
2004, 74–75. Paul Taylor and Bernard Simon, “RIM Sees Fine BlackBerry Harvest,” Financial Times, April 12,
2005, 11. Ben Hunt and Stephen Pritchard, “BlackBerries Are Not the Only Fruit,” Financial Times IT Report,
Wednesday June 29, 2005, 1. Jessica E. Vascellaro, “Research in Motion Net, Revenue More Than Double,”
The Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2007, B3.

• Innovation and New Product Strategy. New products are needed to replace old prod-
ucts when sales and profit growth decline. Closely coordinated new product planning
is essential to satisfy customer requirements and produce products with high quality at
competitive prices. New product decisions include finding and evaluating ideas, select-
ing the most promising for development, designing the products, developing market-
ing programs, market testing the products, and introducing them to the market. The
differences between existing product attributes and those desired by customers offer
opportunities for new and improved products. Successful innovation is a major business
challenge. An interesting example of a new product achieving remarkable results is the
Blackberry handheld device, as described in the INNOVATION FEATURE.

Market-Driven Program Development

Market targeting and positioning strategies for new and existing products guide the choice
of strategies for the marketing program components. Product, distribution, price, and pro-
motion strategies are combined to form the positioning strategy selected for each market
target. The marketing program (mix) strategies implement the positioning strategy.

16

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 16 10/31/07 10:05:16 AM

 Confirming Pages

Chapter 1 Imperatives for Market-Driven Strategy 17

• Strategic Brand Management. Products (goods and services) often are the focal point
of positioning strategy, particularly when companies or business units adopt organi-
zational approaches emphasizing product or brand management. Product strategy
includes: (1) developing plans for new products; (2) managing programs for successful
products; and (3) deciding what to do about problem products (e.g., reduce costs or
improve the product). Strategic brand management consists of building brand value
(equity) and managing the organization’s system of brands for overall performance.
• Value-Chain Strategy. Market target buyers may be contacted on a direct basis using
the firm’s salesforce or by direct marketing contact (e.g., Internet), or, instead, through
a value-added chain (distribution channel) of marketing intermediaries (e.g., wholesal-
ers, retailers, or dealers). Distribution channels are often used in linking producers with
end-user household and business markets. Decisions that need to be made include the
type of channel organizations to use, the extent of channel management performed by
the firm, and the intensity of distribution appropriate for the product or service.
• Pricing Strategy. Price also plays an important role in positioning a product or serv-
ice. Customer reaction to alternative prices, the cost of the product, the prices of the
competition, and various legal and ethical factors establish the extent of flexibility man-
agement has in setting prices. Price strategy involves choosing the role of price in the
positioning strategy, including the desired positioning of the product or brand as well as
the margins necessary to satisfy and motivate distribution channel participants.
• Promotion Strategy. Advertising, sales promotion, the salesforce, direct marketing, and
public relations help the organization to communicate with its customers, value-chain
partners, the public, and other target audiences. These activities make up the promotion
strategy, which performs an essential role in communicating the positioning strategy to
buyers and other relevant influences. Promotion informs, reminds, and persuades buy-
ers and others who influence the purchasing process.

Implementing and Managing Market-Driven Strategy

Selecting the customers to target and the positioning strategy for each target moves mar-
keting strategy development to the action stage (Exhibit 1.6). This stage considers design-
ing the marketing organization and implementing and managing the strategy.
• Designing Market-Driven Organizations. An effective organization design matches
people and work responsibilities in a way that is best for accomplishing the firm’s mar-
keting strategy. Deciding how to assemble people into organizational units and assign
responsibility to the various mix components that make up the marketing strategy are
important influences on performance. Organizational structures and processes must be
matched to the business and marketing strategies that are developed and implemented.
Organizational design needs to be evaluated on a regular basis to assess its adequacy
and to identify necessary changes. Restructuring and reengineering of organizations has
led to many changes in the structures of marketing units.
• Marketing Strategy Implementation and Control. Marketing strategy implementa-
tion and control consists of: (1) preparing the marketing plan and budget; (2) imple-
menting the plan; and (3) using the plan in managing and controlling the strategy on
an ongoing basis. The marketing plan includes details concerning targeting, position-
ing, and marketing mix activities. The plan spells out what is going to happen over the
planning period, who is responsible, how much it will cost, and the expected results
(e.g., sales forecasts). The preparation of the marketing plan is discussed in the Appen-
dix to this chapter.

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 17 10/29/07 12:31:09 PM

 Confirming Pages

18 Part One Strategic Marketing

Marketing strategy is an ongoing process of making decisions, implementing them, and

tracking their effectiveness over time. In time requirements, strategic evaluation is far more
demanding than planning. Evaluation and control are concerned with tracking performance
and, when necessary, altering plans to keep performance on track. Evaluation also includes
looking for new opportunities and potential threats in the future. It is the connecting link in
the strategic marketing planning process shown in Exhibit 1.6. By serving as both the last
stage and the first stage (evaluation before taking action) in the planning process, strategic
evaluation ensures that strategy is an ongoing activity.

Challenges of a New Era for Strategic Marketing

Nearing the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it is apparent that executives
face unprecedented challenges in strategic marketing to cope with turbulent markets,
competitive revolution, and escalating customer demands for value superiority. In this
chapter we describe the rationale for market-driven strategy and its components, as
a business approach relevant to the new challenges of the present and future. Impor-
tantly, the personal demands for incisiveness and ingenuity in creating and implement-
ing innovative and robust marketing strategies should not be ignored. In addition to the
technical skills of analysis and planning required to implement market-driven strategy,
capabilities for understanding new market and competitor phenomena will be at a pre-
mium. Societal and global change also mandates high levels of personal integrity in
managers and leaders, and the reflection of these qualities in the social responsiveness
of organizations.

Escalating Globalization
The internationalization of business is well-recognized in terms of the importance of
export/import trade and the growth of international corporations, particularly in the Triad,
comprising North America, Europe, and Japan. However, for strategic marketing in the
21st century, such a view of the international marketing issue may be short-sighted. The
most intriguing and surprising challenges are likely to come from outside the mature Triad
economies. It is important to understand the degree and extent of difference between the
developed economies and the new world beyond. The effects may be dramatic. Recall our
earlier discussion of the impact of Mittal on the global steel business.
The ability of competitors in emerging countries like China and Korea to produce goods
at very low costs and prices was well-documented in the 1990s and early 2000s, and many
markets like apparel have been severely affected. It is clear that some major customers
may source from countries with massive cost advantages in labor costs. In 2004, Wal-
Mart was the world’s largest purchaser of Chinese goods, spending $15 billion in China
in 2003, making the company China’s fifth largest trading partner, ahead of countries like
Russia and Britain. Indeed, U.S. consumers are reacting to price differences for medical
treatments by traveling abroad. While a heart bypass may cost $25-35,000 in the U.S., the
operation is available in Thailand and India for $8-15,000.34
The corollary is that emerging markets offer huge opportunities for exporters because
of the population size and growing wealth. For example, one of the driving forces in the
huge merger of consumer products companies Procter and Gamble and Gillette was to pool
expertise in emerging markets—the goal of the combined enterprise is to serve the world’s
six billion consumers, not just the one billion most affluent. The focus is on the “lower
income consumer” in markets like India and China, through the development of affordable
products.35

cra81004_ch01_001-029.indd 18 10/29/07 12:31:09 PM

Other documents randomly have
different content
everybody’s grasp, are more valuable than the riches which so many
mortals sigh and struggle after. Tell me, now, do you sincerely desire
to rid yourself of this Golden Touch?”
“It is hateful to me!” replied Midas.
A fly settled on his nose, but immediately fell to the floor; for it,
too, had become gold. Midas shuddered.
“Go, then,” said the stranger, “and plunge into the river that glides
past the bottom of your garden. Take likewise a vase of the same
water, and sprinkle it over any object that you may desire to change
back again from gold into its former substance. If you do this in
earnestness and sincerity, it may possibly repair the mischief which
your avarice has occasioned.”
King Midas bowed low; and when he lifted his head, the lustrous
stranger had vanished.
You will easily believe that Midas lost no time in snatching up a
great earthen pitcher (but, alas me! it was no longer earthen after
he touched it), and hastening to the river-side. As he scampered
along, and forced his way through the shrubbery, it was positively
marvellous to see how the foliage turned yellow behind him, as if
the autumn had been there, and nowhere else. On reaching the
river’s brink, he plunged headlong in, without waiting so much as to
pull off his shoes.
“Poof! poof! poof!” snorted King Midas, as his head emerged out
of the water. “Well; this is really a refreshing bath, and I think it
must have quite washed away the Golden Touch. And now for filling
my pitcher!”
As he dipped the pitcher into the water, it gladdened his very
heart to see it change from gold into the same good, honest earthen
vessel which it had been before he touched it. He was conscious,
also, of a change within himself. A cold, hard, and heavy weight
seemed to have gone out of his bosom. No doubt, his heart had
been gradually losing its human substance, and transmuting itself
into insensible metal, but had now softened back again into flesh.
Perceiving a violet, that grew on the bank of the river, Midas touched
it with his finger, and was overjoyed to find that the delicate flower
retained its purple hue, instead of undergoing a yellow blight. The
curse of the Golden Touch had, therefore, really been removed from
him.
King Midas hastened back to the palace; and, I suppose, the
servants knew not what to make of it when they saw their royal
master so carefully bringing home an earthen pitcher of water. But
that water, which was to undo all the mischief that his folly had
wrought, was more precious to Midas than an ocean of molten gold
could have been. The first thing he did, as you need hardly be told,
was to sprinkle it by handfuls over the golden figure of little
Marygold.
No sooner did it fall on her than you would have laughed to see
how the rosy color came back to the dear child’s cheek! and how she
began to sneeze and sputter!—and how astonished she was to find
herself dripping wet, and her father still throwing more water over
her!
“Pray do not, dear father!” cried she. “See how you have wet my
nice frock, which I put on only this morning!”
For Marygold did not know that she had been a little golden
statue; nor could she remember anything that had happened since
the moment when she ran with outstretched arms to comfort poor
King Midas.
Her father did not think it necessary to tell his beloved child how
very foolish he had been, but contented himself with showing how
much wiser he had now grown. For this purpose, he led little
Marygold into the garden, where he sprinkled all the remainder of
the water over the rose-bushes, and with such good effect that
above five thousand roses recovered their beautiful bloom. There
were two circumstances, however, which, as long as he lived, used
to put King Midas in mind of the Golden Touch. One was, that the
sands of the river sparkled like gold; the other, that little Marygold’s
hair had now a golden tinge, which he had never observed in it
before she had been transmuted by the effect of his kiss. This
change of hue was really an improvement, and made Marygold’s hair
richer than in her babyhood.
When King Midas had grown quite an old man and used to trot
Marygold’s children on his knee he was fond of telling them this
marvellous story, pretty much as I have told it to you. And then
would he stroke their glossy ringlets, and tell them that their hair,
likewise, had a rich shade of gold, which they had inherited from
their mother.
“And to tell you the truth, my precious little folks,” quoth King
Midas, diligently trotting the children all the while, “ever since that
morning, I have hated the very sight of all other gold, save this!”

THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS

By Nathaniel Hawthorne

M
other Ceres was exceedingly fond of her daughter Proserpina,
and seldom let her go alone into the fields. But, just at the time
when my story begins, the good lady was very busy, because she
had the care of the wheat, and the Indian corn, and the rye and
barley, and, in short, of the crops of every kind, all over the earth;
and as the season had thus far been uncommonly backward, it was
necessary to make the harvest ripen more speedily than usual. So
she put on her turban, made of poppies (a kind of flower which she
was always noted for wearing), and got into her car, drawn by a pair
of winged dragons, and was just ready to set off.
“Dear mother,” said Proserpina, “I shall be very lonely while you
are away. May I not run down to the shore, and ask some of the
sea-nymphs to come up out of the waves and play with me?”
 “Yes, child,” answered Mother Ceres. “The sea-nymphs are good
creatures, and will never lead you into any harm. But you must take
care not to stray away from them, nor go wandering about the fields
by yourself. Young girls, without their mothers to take care of them,
are very apt to get into mischief.”
The child promised to be as prudent as if she were a grown-up
woman, and, by the time the winged dragons had whirled the car
out of sight, she was already on the shore, calling to the sea-
nymphs to come and play with her. They knew Proserpina’s voice,
and were not long in showing their glistening faces and sea-green
hair above the water, at the bottom of which was their home. They
brought along with them a great many beautiful shells; and, sitting
down on the moist sand, where the surf wave broke over them, they
busied themselves in making a necklace, which they hung around
Proserpina’s neck. By way of showing her gratitude, the child
besought them to go with her a little way into the field, so that they
might gather abundance of flowers, with which she would make
each of her kind playmates a wreath.
“Oh no, dear Proserpina,” cried the sea-nymphs; “we dare not go
with you upon the dry land. We are apt to grow faint, unless at
every breath we can snuff up the salt breeze of the ocean. And don’t
you see how careful we are to let the surf wave break over us every
moment or two, so as to keep ourselves comfortably moist? If it
were not for that, we should soon look like bunches of uprooted sea-
weed dried in the sun.”
“It is a great pity,” said Proserpina. “But do you wait for me here,
and I will run and gather my apron full of flowers, and be back again
before the surf wave has broken ten times over you. I long to make
you some wreaths that shall be as lovely as this necklace of many-
colored shells.”
“We will wait, then,” answered the sea-nymphs. “But while you are
gone, we may as well lie down on a bank of soft sponge, under the
water. The air to-day is a little too dry for our comfort. But we will
pop up our heads every few minutes to see if you are coming.”
 The young Proserpina ran quickly to a spot where, only the day
before, she had seen a great many flowers. These, however, were
now a little past their bloom; and wishing to give her friends the
freshest and loveliest blossoms, she strayed farther into the fields,
and found some that made her scream with delight. Never had she
met with such exquisite flowers before—violets, so large and
fragrant—roses, with so rich and delicate a blush—such superb
hyacinths and such aromatic pinks—and many others, some of which
seemed to be of new shapes and colors. Two or three times,
moreover, she could not help thinking that a tuft of most splendid
flowers had suddenly sprouted out of the earth before her very eyes,
as if on purpose to tempt her a few steps farther. Proserpina’s apron
was soon filled and brimming over with delightful blossoms. She was
on the point of turning back in order to rejoin the sea-nymphs, and
sit with them on the moist sands, all twining wreaths together. But, a
little farther on, what should she behold? It was a large shrub,
completely covered with the most magnificent flowers in the world.
“The darlings!” cried Proserpina; and then she thought to herself,
“I was looking at that spot only a moment ago. How strange it is
that I did not see the flowers!”
The nearer she approached the shrub, the more attractive it
looked, until she came quite close to it; and then, although its
beauty was richer than words can tell, she hardly knew whether to
like it or not. It bore above a hundred flowers of the most brilliant
hues, and each different from the others, but all having a kind of
resemblance among themselves, which showed them to be sister
blossoms. But there was a deep, glossy luster on the leaves of the
shrub, and on the petals of the flowers, that made Proserpina doubt
whether they might not be poisonous. To tell you the truth, foolish
as it may seem, she was half inclined to turn round and run away.
“What a silly child I am!” thought she, taking courage. “It is really
the most beautiful shrub that ever sprang out of the earth. I will pull
it up by the roots, and carry it home, and plant it in my mother’s
garden.”
 Holding up her apron full of flowers with her left hand, Proserpina
seized the large shrub with the other, and pulled and pulled, but was
hardly able to loosen the soil about its roots. What a deep-rooted
plant it was! Again the girl pulled with all her might, and observed
that the earth began to stir and crack to some distance around the
stem. She gave another pull, but relaxed her hold, fancying that
there was a rumbling sound right beneath her feet. Did the roots
extend down into some enchanted cavern? Then, laughing at herself
for so childish a notion, she made another effort; up came the
shrub, and Proserpina staggered back, holding the stem
triumphantly in her hand, and gazing at the deep hole which its
roots had left in the soil.
Much to her astonishment, this hole kept spreading wider and
wider, and growing deeper and deeper, until it really seemed to have
no bottom; and all the while, there came a rumbling noise out of its
depths, louder and louder, and nearer and nearer, and sounding like
the tramp of horses’ hoofs and the rattling of wheels. Too much
frightened to run away, she stood straining her eyes into this
wonderful cavity, and soon saw a team of four sable horses snorting
smoke out of their nostrils, and tearing their way out of the earth
with a splendid golden chariot whirling at their heels. They leaped
out of the bottomless hole, chariot and all; and there they were,
tossing their black manes, flourishing their black tails, and curvetting
with every one of their hoofs off the ground at once, close by the
spot where Proserpina stood. In the chariot sat the figure of a man,
richly dressed, with a crown on his head, all flaming with diamonds.
He was of a noble aspect, and rather handsome, but looked sullen
and discontented; and he kept rubbing his eyes and shading them
with his hand, as if he did not live enough in the sunshine to be very
fond of its light.
As soon as this personage saw the affrighted Proserpina, he
beckoned her to come a little nearer.
“Do not be afraid,” said he, with as cheerful a smile as he knew
how to put on. “Come! Will not you like to ride a little way with me,
in my beautiful chariot?”
But Proserpina was so alarmed, that she wished for nothing but to
get out of his reach. And no wonder. The stranger did not look
remarkably good-natured, in spite of his smile; and as for his voice,
its tones were deep and stern, and sounded as much like the
rumbling of an earthquake under ground as anything else. As is
always the case with children in trouble, Proserpina’s first thought
was to call for her mother.
“Mother, Mother Ceres!” cried she, all in a tremble. “Come quickly
and save me.”
But her voice was too faint for her mother to hear. Indeed, it is
most probable that Ceres was then a thousand miles off, making the
corn grow in some far-distant country. Nor could it have availed her
poor daughter, even had she been within hearing; for no sooner did
Proserpina begin to cry out, than the stranger leaped to the ground,
caught the child in his arms, and again mounting the chariot, shook
the reins, and shouted to the four black horses to set off. They
immediately broke into so swift a gallop that it seemed rather like
flying through the air than running along the earth. In a moment,
Proserpina lost sight of the pleasant vale of Enna, in which she had
always dwelt. Another instant and even the summit of Mount Ætna
had become so blue in the distance, that she could scarcely
distinguish it from the smoke that gushed out of its crater. But still
the poor child screamed, and scattered her apron full of flowers
along the way, and left a long cry trailing behind the chariot; and
many mothers, to whose ears it came, ran quickly to see if any
mischief had befallen their children. But Mother Ceres was a great
way off, and could not hear the cry.
As they rode on, the stranger did his best to soothe her.
“Why should you be so frightened, my pretty child,” said he, trying
to soften his rough voice. “I promise not to do you any harm. What!
You have been gathering flowers? Wait till we come to my palace,
and I will give you a garden full of prettier flowers than those, all
made of pearls, and diamonds, and rubies. Can you guess who I
am? They call my name Pluto, and I am the king of diamonds and all
other precious stones. Every atom of the gold and silver that lies
under the earth belongs to me, to say nothing of the copper and
iron, and of the coal-mines, which supply me with abundance of
fuel. Do you see this splendid crown upon my head? You may have it
for a plaything. Oh, we shall be very good friends, and you will find
me more agreeable than you expect, when once we get out of this
troublesome sunshine.”
“Let me go home!” cried Proserpina—“let me go home!”
“My home is better than your mother’s,” answered King Pluto. “It
is a palace, all made of gold, and crystal windows; and because
there is little or no sunshine thereabouts, the apartments are
illuminated with diamond lamps. You never saw anything half so
magnificent as my throne. If you like, you may sit down on it, and
be my little queen, and I will sit on the footstool.”
“I don’t care for golden palaces and thrones,” sobbed Proserpina.
“Oh, my mother, my mother! Carry me back to my mother!”
But King Pluto, as he called himself, only shouted to his steeds to
go faster.
“Pray do not be foolish, Proserpina,” said he, in rather a sullen
tone. “I offer you my palace and my crown, and all the riches that
are under the earth, and you treat me as if I were doing you an
injury. The one thing which my palace needs is a merry little maid,
to run upstairs and down, and cheer up the rooms with her smile.
And this is what you must do for King Pluto.”
“Never!” answered Proserpina, looking as miserable as she could.
“I shall never smile again till you set me down at my mother’s door.”
But she might just as well have talked to the wind that whistled
past them; for Pluto urged on his horses, and went faster than ever.
Proserpina continued to cry out, and screamed so long and so loudly
that her poor little voice was almost screamed away; and when it
was nothing but a whisper, she happened to cast her eyes over a
great, broad field of waving grain—and whom do you think she saw?
Who, but Mother Ceres, making the corn grow, and too busy to
notice the golden chariot as it went rattling along. The child
mustered all her strength, and gave one more scream, but was out
of sight before Ceres had time to turn her head.
King Pluto had taken a road which now began to grow excessively
gloomy. It was bordered on each side with rocks and precipices,
between which the rumbling of the chariot-wheels was reverberated
with a noise like rolling thunder. The trees and bushes that grew in
the crevices of the rocks had very dismal foliage; and by and by,
although it was hardly noon, the air became obscured with a gray
twilight. The black horses had rushed along so swiftly, that they
were already beyond the limits of the sunshine. But the duskier it
grew, the more did Pluto’s visage assume an air of satisfaction. After
all, he was not an ill-looking person, especially when he left off
twisting his features into a smile that did not belong to them.
Proserpina peeped at his face through the gathering dusk, and
hoped that he might not be so very wicked as she at first thought
him.
“Ah, this twilight is truly refreshing,” said King Pluto, “after being
so tormented with that ugly and impertinent glare of the sun. How
much more agreeable is lamplight or torchlight, more particularly
when reflected from diamonds! It will be a magnificent sight when
we get to my palace.”
“Is it much farther?” asked Proserpina. “And will you carry me
back when I have seen it?”
“We will talk of that by and by,” answered Pluto. “We are just
entering my dominions. Do you see that tall gateway before us?
When we pass those gates, we are at home. And there lies my
faithful mastiff at the threshold. Cerberus! Cerberus! Come hither,
my good dog!”
So saying, Pluto pulled at the reins, and stopped the chariot right
between the tall, massive pillars of the gateway. The mastiff of
which he had spoken got up from the threshold, and stood on his
hinder legs, so as to put his forepaws on the chariot-wheel. But, my
stars, what a strange dog it was! Why, he was a big, rough, ugly-
looking monster, with three separate heads, and each of them fiercer
than the two others; but, fierce as they were, King Pluto patted
them all. He seemed as fond of his three-headed dog as if it had
been a sweet little spaniel, with silken ears and curly hair. Cerberus,
on the other hand, was evidently rejoiced to see his master, and
expressed his attachment, as other dogs do, by wagging his tail at a
great rate. Proserpina’s eyes being drawn to it by its brisk motion,
she saw that this tail was neither more nor less than a live dragon,
with fiery eyes, and fangs that had a very poisonous aspect. And
while the three-headed Cerberus was fawning so lovingly on King
Pluto, there was the dragon tail wagging against its will, and looking
as cross and ill-natured as you can imagine, on its own separate
account.
“Will the dog bite me?” asked Proserpina, shrinking closer to Pluto.
“What an ugly creature he is!”
“Oh, never fear,” answered her companion. “He never harms
people, unless they try to enter my dominions without being sent for,
or to get away when I wish to keep them here. Down, Cerberus!
Now, my pretty Proserpina, we will drive on.”
On went the chariot, and King Pluto seemed greatly pleased to
find himself once more in his own kingdom. He drew Proserpina’s
attention to the rich veins of gold that were to be seen among the
rocks, and pointed to several places where one stroke of a pick-axe
would loosen a bushel of diamonds. All along the road, indeed, there
were sparkling gems, which would have been of inestimable value
above ground, but which were here reckoned of the meaner sort,
and hardly worth a beggar’s stooping for.
Not far from the gateway, they came to a bridge, which seemed to
be built of iron. Pluto stopped the chariot, and bade Proserpina look
at the stream which was gliding so lazily beneath it. Never in her life
had she beheld so torpid, so black, so muddy-looking a stream: its
waters reflected no images of anything that was on the banks, and it
moved as sluggishly as if it had quite forgotten which way it ought to
flow, and had rather stagnate than flow either one way or the other.
“This is the river Lethe,” observed King Pluto. “Is it not a very
pleasant stream?”
“I think it a very dismal one,” said Proserpina.
“It suits my taste, however,” answered Pluto, who was apt to be
sullen when anybody disagreed with him. “At all events, its water
has one very excellent quality; for a single draught of it makes
people forget every care and sorrow that has hitherto tormented
them. Only sip a little of it, my dear Proserpina, and you will
instantly cease to grieve for your mother, and will have nothing in
your memory that can prevent your being perfectly happy in my
palace. I will send for some, in a golden goblet, the moment we
arrive.”
“Oh, no, no, no!” cried Proserpina, weeping afresh. “I had a
thousand times rather be miserable with remembering my mother,
than be happy in forgetting her. That dear, dear mother! I never,
never will forget her.”
“We shall see,” said King Pluto. “You do not know what fine times
we will have in my palace. Here we are just at the portal. These
pillars are solid gold, I assure you.”
He alighted from the chariot, and taking Proserpina in his arms,
carried her up a lofty flight of steps into the great hall of the palace.
It was splendidly illuminated by means of large precious stones, of
various hues, which seemed to burn like so many lamps, and glowed
with a hundredfold radiance all through the vast apartment. And yet
there was a kind of gloom in the midst of this enchanted light; nor
was there a single object in the hall that was really agreeable to
behold, except the little Proserpina herself, a lovely child, with one
earthly flower which she had not let fall from her hand. It is my
opinion that even King Pluto had never been happy in his palace,
and that this was the true reason why he had stolen away
Proserpina, in order that he might have something to love, instead of
cheating his heart any longer with this tiresome magnificence. And,
though he pretended to dislike the sunshine of the upper world, yet
the effect of the child’s presence, bedimmed as she was by her
tears, was as if a faint and watery sunbeam had somehow or other
found its way into the enchanted hall.
Pluto now summoned his domestics, and bade them lose no time
in preparing a most sumptuous banquet, and above all things, not to
fail of setting a golden beaker of the water of Lethe by Proserpina’s
plate.
“I will neither drink that nor anything else,” said Proserpina. “Nor
will I taste a morsel of food, even if you keep me forever in your
palace.”
“I should be sorry for that,” replied King Pluto, patting her cheek;
for he really wished to be kind, if he had only known how. “You are
a spoiled child, I perceive, my little Proserpina; but when you see
the nice things which my cook will make for you, your appetite will
quickly come again.”
Then, sending for the head cook, he gave strict orders that all
sorts of delicacies, such as young people are usually fond of, should
be set before Proserpina. He had a secret motive in this; for, you are
to understand, it is a fixed law, that, when persons are carried off to
the land of magic, if they once taste any food there, they can never
get back to their friends. Now, if King Pluto had been cunning
enough to offer Proserpina some fruit, or bread and milk (which was
the simple fare to which the child had always been accustomed), it is
very probable that she would soon have been tempted to eat it. But
he left the matter entirely to his cook, who, like all other cooks,
considered nothing fit to eat unless it were rich pastry, or highly
seasoned meat, or spiced sweet cakes—things which Proserpina’s
mother had never given her, and the smell of which quite took away
her appetite, instead of sharpening it.
 But my story must now clamber out of King Pluto’s dominions, and
see what Mother Ceres has been about, since she was bereft of her
daughter. We had a glimpse of her, as you remember, half hidden
among the waving grain, while the four black steeds were swiftly
whirling along the chariot in which her beloved Proserpina was so
unwillingly borne away. You recollect, too, the loud scream which
Proserpina gave, just when the chariot was out of sight.
Of all the child’s outcries, this last shriek was the only one that
reached the ears of Mother Ceres. She had mistaken the rumbling of
the chariot-wheels for a peal of thunder, and imagined that a shower
was coming up, and that it would assist her in making the corn
grow. But, at the sound of Proserpina’s shriek, she started, and
looked about in every direction, not knowing whence it came, but
feeling almost certain that it was her daughter’s voice. It seemed so
unaccountable, however, that the girl should have strayed over so
many lands and seas (which she herself could not have traversed
without the aid of her winged dragons), that the good Ceres tried to
believe that it must be the child of some other parent, and not her
own darling Proserpina, who had uttered this lamentable cry.
Nevertheless, it troubled her with a vast many tender fears, such as
are ready to bestir themselves in every mother’s heart, when she
finds it necessary to go away from her dear children without leaving
them under the care of some maiden aunt, or other such faithful
guardian.
So she quickly left the field in which she had been so busy; and,
as her work was not half done, the grain looked, next day, as if it
needed both sun and rain, and as if it were blighted in the ear, and
had something the matter with its roots.
The pair of dragons must have had very nimble wings; for, in less
than an hour, Mother Ceres had alighted at the door of her home,
and found it empty. Knowing, however, that the child was fond of
sporting on the seashore, she hastened thither as fast as she could,
and there beheld the wet faces of the poor sea-nymphs peeping
over a wave. All this while, the good creatures had been waiting on
the bank of sponge, and, once every half-minute or so, had popped
up their four heads above water, to see if their playmate were yet
coming back. When they saw Mother Ceres, they sat down on the
crest of the surf wave, and let it toss them ashore at her feet.
“Where is Proserpina?” cried Ceres. “Where is my child? Tell me,
you naughty sea-nymphs, have you enticed her under the sea?”
“Oh, no, good Mother Ceres,” said the innocent sea-nymphs,
tossing back their green ringlets, and looking her in the face. “We
never should dream of such a thing. Proserpina has been at play
with us, it is true; but she left us a long while ago, meaning only to
run a little way upon the dry land, and gather some flowers for a
wreath. This was early in the day, and we have seen nothing of her
since.”
Ceres scarcely waited to hear what the nymphs had to say, before
she hurried off to make inquiries all through the neighborhood. But
nobody told her anything that could enable the poor mother to
guess what had become of Proserpina. A fisherman, it is true, had
noticed her little footprints in the sand, as he went homeward along
the beach with a basket of fish; a rustic had seen the child stooping
to gather flowers; several persons had heard either the rattling of
chariot-wheels, or the rumbling of distant thunder; and one old
woman, while plucking vervain and catnip, had heard a scream, but
supposed it to be some childish nonsense, and therefore did not take
the trouble to look up. The stupid people! It took them such a
tedious while to tell the nothing that they knew, that it was dark
night before Mother Ceres found out that she must seek her
daughter elsewhere. So she lighted a torch, and set forth, resolving
never to come back until Proserpina was discovered.
In her haste and trouble of mind, she quite forgot her car and the
winged dragons; or, it may be, she thought that she could follow up
the search more thoroughly on foot. At all events, this was the way
in which she began her sorrowful journey, holding her torch before
her, and looking carefully at every object along the path. And as it
happened, she had not gone far before she found one of the
magnificent flowers which grew on the shrub that Proserpina had
pulled up.
“Ha!” thought Mother Ceres, examining it by torchlight. “Here is
mischief in this flower! The earth did not produce it by any help of
mine, nor of its own accord. It is the work of enchantment, and is
therefore poisonous; and perhaps it has poisoned my poor child.”
But she put the poisonous flower in her bosom, not knowing
whether she might ever find any other memorial of Proserpina.
All night long, at the door of every cottage and farmhouse, Ceres
knocked, and called up the weary laborers to inquire if they had
seen her child; and they stood, gaping and half asleep, at the
threshold, and answered her pityingly, and besought her to come in
and rest. At the portal of every palace, too, she made so loud a
summons that the menials hurried to throw open the gate, thinking
that it must be some great king or queen, who would demand a
banquet for supper and a stately chamber to repose in. And when
they saw only a sad and anxious woman, with a torch in her hand
and a wreath of withered poppies on her head, they spoke rudely,
and sometimes threatened to set the dogs upon her. But nobody had
seen Proserpina, nor could give Mother Ceres the least hint which
way to seek her. Thus passed the night; and still she continued her
search without sitting down to rest, or stopping to take food, or even
remembering to put out the torch; although first the rosy dawn, and
then the glad light of the morning sun, made its red flame look thin
and pale. But I wonder what sort of stuff this torch was made of; for
it burned dimly through the day, and, at night, was as bright as ever,
and never was extinguished by the rain or wind, in all the weary
days and nights while Ceres was seeking for Proserpina.
It was not merely of human beings that she asked tidings of her
daughter. In the woods and by the streams, she met creatures of
another nature, who used, in those old times, to haunt the pleasant
and solitary places, and were very sociable with persons who
understood their language and customs, as Mother Ceres did.
Sometimes, for instance, she tapped with her finger against the
knotted trunk of a majestic oak; and immediately its rude bark
would cleave asunder, and forth would step a beautiful maiden, who
was the hamadryad of the oak, dwelling inside of it, and sharing its
long life, and rejoicing when its green leaves sported with the
breeze. But not one of these leafy damsels had seen Proserpina.
Then, going a little farther, Ceres would, perhaps, come to a
fountain, gushing out of a pebbly hollow in the earth, and would
dabble with her hand in the water. Behold, up through its sandy and
pebbly bed, along with the fountain’s gush, a young woman with
dripping hair would arise, and stand gazing at Mother Ceres, half out
of the water, and undulating up and down with its ever-restless
motion. But when the mother asked whether her poor lost child had
stopped to drink out of the fountain, the naiad, with weeping eyes
(for these water-nymphs had tears to spare for everybody’s grief),
would answer, “No!” in a murmuring voice, which was just like the
murmur of the stream.
Often, likewise, she encountered fauns, who looked like sunburnt
country people, except that they had hairy ears, and little horns
upon their foreheads, and the hinder legs of goats, on which they
gambolled merrily about the woods and fields. They were a
frolicsome kind of creature, but grew as sad as their cheerful
dispositions would allow when Ceres inquired for her daughter, and
they had no good news to tell. But sometimes she came suddenly
upon a rude gang of satyrs, who had faces like monkeys and horses’
tails behind them, and who were generally dancing in a very
boisterous manner, with shouts of noisy laughter. When she stopped
to question them, they would only laugh the louder, and make new
merriment out of the lone woman’s distress. How unkind of those
ugly satyrs. And once, while crossing a solitary sheep-pasture, she
saw a personage named Pan, seated at the foot of a tall rock, and
making music on a shepherd’s flute. He, too, had horns, and hairy
ears, and goat’s feet; but, being acquainted with Mother Ceres, he
answered her question as civilly as he knew how, and invited her to
taste some milk and honey out of a wooden bowl. But neither could
Pan tell her what had become of Proserpina, any better than the rest
of these wild peoples.
And thus Mother Ceres went wandering about for nine long days
and nights, finding no trace of Proserpina, unless it were now and
then a withered flower; and these she picked up and put in her
bosom, because she fancied that they might have fallen from her
poor child’s hand. All day she travelled onward through the hot sun;
and at night, again, the flame of the torch would redden and gleam
along the pathway, and she continued her search by its light,
without ever sitting down to rest.
On the tenth day, she chanced to espy the mouth of a cavern,
within which (though it was bright noon everywhere else) there
would have been only a dusky twilight; but it so happened that a
torch was burning there. It flickered, and struggled with the
duskiness, but could not half light up the gloomy cavern with all its
melancholy glimmer. Ceres was resolved to leave no spot without a
search; so she peeped into the entrance of the cave, and lighted it
up a little more, by holding her own torch before her. In so doing,
she caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a woman, sitting on the
brown leaves of the last autumn, a great heap of which had been
swept into the cave by the wind. This woman (if woman it were)
was by no means so beautiful as many of her sex; for her head, they
tell me, was shaped very much like a dog’s, and, by way of
ornament, she wore a wreath of snakes around it.
But Mother Ceres, the moment she saw her, knew that this was an
odd kind of a person, who put all her enjoyment in being miserable,
and never would have a word to say to other people, unless they
were as melancholy and wretched as she herself delighted to be.
“I am wretched enough now,” thought poor Ceres, “to talk with
this melancholy Hecate, were she ten times sadder than ever she
was yet.”
So she stepped into the cave, and sat down on the withered
leaves by the dog-headed woman’s side. In all the world, since her
daughter’s loss, she had found no other companion.
“O Hecate,” said she, “if ever you lose a daughter, you will know
what sorrow is. Tell me, for pity’s sake, have you seen my poor child
Proserpina pass by the mouth of your cavern?”
“No,” answered Hecate, in a cracked voice, and sighing betwixt
every word or two—“no, Mother Ceres, I have seen nothing of your
daughter. But my ears, you must know, are made in such a way that
all cries of distress and affright, all over the world, are pretty sure to
find their way to them; and nine days ago, as I sat in my cave,
making myself very miserable, I heard the voice of a young girl,
shrieking as if in great distress. Something terrible has happened to
the child, you may rest assured. As well as I could judge, a dragon,
or some other cruel monster, was carrying her away.”
“You kill me by saying so,” cried Ceres, almost ready to faint.
“Where was the sound, and which way did it seem to go?”
“It passed very swiftly along,” said Hecate, “and, at the same
time, there was a heavy rumbling of wheels towards the eastward. I
can tell you nothing more, except that, in my honest opinion, you
will never see your daughter again. The best advice I can give you
is, to take up your abode in this cavern, where we will be the two
most wretched women in the world.”
“Not yet, dark Hecate,” replied Ceres. “But do you first come with
your torch, and help me to seek for my lost child. And when there
shall be no more hope of finding her (if that black day is ordained to
come), then, if you will give me room to fling myself down, either on
these withered leaves or on the naked rock, I will show you what it
is to be miserable. But, until I know that she has perished from the
face of the earth, I will not allow myself space even to grieve.”
The dismal Hecate did not much like the idea of going abroad into
the sunny world. But then she reflected that the sorrow of the
disconsolate Ceres would be like a gloomy twilight round about them
both, let the sun shine ever so brightly, and that therefore she might
enjoy her bad spirits, quite as well as if she were to stay in the cave.
So she finally consented to go, and they set out together, both
carrying torches, although it was broad daylight and clear sunshine.
The torchlight seemed to make a gloom; so that the people whom
they met along the road could not very distinctly see their figures;
and, indeed, if they once caught a glimpse of Hecate, with the
wreath of snakes round her forehead, they generally thought it
prudent to run away, without waiting for a second glance.
As the pair travelled along in this woe-begone manner, a thought
struck Ceres.
“There is one person,” she exclaimed, “who must have seen my
poor child, and can doubtless tell what has become of her. Why did
not I think of him before? It is Phœbus.”
“What,” said Hecate, “the young man that always sits in the
sunshine? Oh, pray do not think of going near him. He is a gay, light,
frivolous young fellow, and will only smile in your face. And besides,
there is such a glare of the sun about him, that he will quite blind
my poor eyes, which I have almost wept away already.”
“You have promised to be my companion,” answered Ceres.
“Come, let us make haste, or the sunshine will be gone, and Phœbus
along with it.”
Accordingly, they went along in quest of Phœbus, both of them
sighing grievously, and Hecate, to say the truth, making a great deal
worse lamentation than Ceres; for all the pleasure she had, you
know, lay in being miserable, and therefore she made the most of it.
By and by, after a pretty long journey, they arrived at the sunniest
spot in the whole world. There they beheld a beautiful young man,
with long, curling ringlets, which seemed to be made of golden
sunbeams; his garments were like light summer clouds; and the
expression of his face was so exceedingly vivid, that Hecate held her
hands before her eyes, muttering that he ought to wear a black veil.
Phœbus (for this was the very person whom they were seeking) had
a lyre in his hands, and was making its chords tremble with sweet
music; at the same time singing a most exquisite song, which he
had recently composed. For, besides a great many other
accomplishments, this young man was renowned for his admirable
poetry.
As Ceres and her dismal companion approached him, Phœbus
smiled on them so cheerfully that Hecate’s wreath of snakes gave a
spiteful hiss, and Hecate heartily wished herself back in her cave.
But as for Ceres, she was too earnest in her grief either to know or
care whether Phœbus smiled or frowned.
“Phœbus,” exclaimed she, “I am in great trouble, and have come
to you for assistance. Can you tell me what has become of my dear
child Proserpina?”
“Proserpina! Proserpina, did you call her name?” answered
Phœbus, endeavoring to recollect; for there was such a continual
flow of pleasant ideas in his mind that he was apt to forget what had
happened no longer ago than yesterday. “Ah, yes, I remember her
now. A very lovely child, indeed. I am happy to tell you, my dear
madam, that I did see the little Proserpina not many days ago. You
may make yourself perfectly easy about her. She is safe, and in
excellent hands.”
 “Oh, where is my dear child?” cried Ceres, clasping her hands and
flinging herself at his feet.
“Why,” said Phœbus—and as he spoke, he kept touching his lyre
so as to make a thread of music run in and out among his words
—“as the little damsel was gathering flowers (and she has really a
very exquisite taste for flowers) she was suddenly snatched up by
King Pluto, and carried off to his dominions. I have never been in
that part of the universe; but the royal palace, I am told, is built in a
very noble style of architecture, and of the most splendid and costly
materials. Gold, diamonds, pearls, and all manner of precious stones
will be your daughter’s ordinary playthings. I recommend to you, my
dear lady, to give yourself no uneasiness. Proserpina’s sense of
beauty will be duly gratified, and, even in spite of the lack of
sunshine, she will lead a very enviable life.”
“Hush! Say not such a word!” answered Ceres, indignantly. “What
is there to gratify her heart? What are all the splendors you speak of,
without affection? I must have her back again. Will you go with me,
Phœbus, to demand my daughter of this wicked Pluto?”
“Pray excuse me,” replied Phœbus, with an elegant obeisance. “I
certainly wish you success, and regret that my own affairs are so
immediately pressing that I cannot have the pleasure of attending
you. Besides, I am not upon the best of terms with King Pluto. To
tell you the truth, his three-headed mastiff would never let me pass
the gateway; for I should be compelled to take a sheaf of sunbeams
along with me, and those, you know, are forbidden things in Pluto’s
kingdom.”
“Ah, Phœbus,” said Ceres, with bitter meaning in her words, “you
have a harp instead of a heart. Farewell.”
“Will not you stay a moment,” asked Phœbus, “and hear me turn
the pretty and touching story of Proserpina into extemporary
verses?”
But Ceres shook her head, and hastened away, along with Hecate.
Phœbus (who, as I have told you, was an exquisite poet) forthwith
began to make an ode about the poor mother’s grief; and, if we
were to judge of his sensibility by this beautiful production, he must
have been endowed with a very tender heart. But when a poet gets
into the habit of using his heart strings to make chords for his lyre,
he may thrum upon them as much as he will, without any great pain
to himself. Accordingly, though Phœbus sang a very sad song, he
was as merry all the while as were the sunbeams amid which he
dwelt.
Poor Mother Ceres had now found out what had become of her
daughter, but was not a whit happier than before. Her case, on the
contrary, looked more desperate than ever. As long as Proserpina
was above ground there might have been hopes of regaining her.
But now that the poor child was shut up within the iron gates of the
king of the mines, at the threshold of which lay the three-headed
Cerberus, there seemed no possibility of her ever making her
escape. The dismal Hecate, who loved to take the darkest view of
things, told Ceres that she had better come with her to the cavern,
and spend the rest of her life in being miserable. Ceres answered
that Hecate was welcome to go back thither herself, but that, for her
part, she would wander about the earth in quest of the entrance to
King Pluto’s dominions. And Hecate took her at her word, and
hurried back to her beloved cave, frightening a great many little
children with a glimpse of her dog’s face, as she went.
Poor Mother Ceres! It is melancholy to think of her pursuing her
toilsome way all alone, and holding up that never-dying torch, the
flame of which seemed an emblem of the grief and hope that
burned together in her heart. So much did she suffer, that, though
her aspect had been quite youthful when her troubles began, she
grew to look like an elderly person in a very brief time. She cared
not how she was dressed, nor had she ever thought of flinging away
the wreath of withered poppies, which she put on the very morning
of Proserpina’s disappearance. She roamed about in so wild a way,
and with her hair so dishevelled, that people took her for some
distracted creature, and never dreamed that this was Mother Ceres,
who had the oversight of every seed which the husbandman
planted. Nowadays, she gave herself no trouble about seed-time nor
harvest, but left the farmers to take care of their own affairs, and
the crops to fade or flourish, as the case might be. There was
nothing, now, in which Ceres seemed to feel an interest unless when
she saw children at play, or gathering flowers along the wayside.
Then, indeed, she would stand and gaze at them with tears in her
eyes. The children, too, appeared to have a sympathy with her grief,
and would cluster themselves in a little group about her knees, and
look up wistfully in her face; and Ceres, after giving them a kiss all
round, would lead them to their homes, and advise their mothers
never to let them stray out of sight.
“For if they do,” said she, “it may happen to you, as it has to me,
that the iron-hearted King Pluto will take a liking to your darlings,
and snatch them up in his chariot, and carry them away.”
One day, during her pilgrimage in quest of the entrance to Pluto’s
kingdom, she came to the palace of King Celeus, who reigned at
Eleusis. Ascending a lofty flight of steps, she entered the portal, and
found the royal household in very great alarm about the queen’s
baby. The infant, it seems, was sickly (being troubled with its teeth,
I suppose), and would take no food, and was all the time moaning
with pain. The queen—her name was Metanira—was desirous of
finding a nurse; and when she beheld a woman of matronly aspect
coming up the palace steps, she thought, in her own mind, that here
was the very person whom she needed. So Queen Metanira ran to
the door, with the poor wailing baby in her arms, and besought
Ceres to take charge of it, or, at least, to tell her what would do it
good.
“Will you trust the child entirely to me?” asked Ceres.
“Yes, and gladly, too,” answered the queen, “if you will devote all
your time to him. For I can see that you have been a mother.”
“You are right,” said Ceres. “I once had a child of my own. Well; I
will be the nurse of this poor, sickly boy. But beware, I warn you,
that you do not interfere with any kind of treatment which I may
judge proper for him. If you do so, the poor infant must suffer for
his mother’s folly.”
Then she kissed the child, and it seemed to do him good; for he
smiled and nestled closely into her bosom.
So Mother Ceres set her torch in a corner (where it kept burning
all the while), and took up her abode in the palace of King Celeus, as
nurse to the little Prince Demophoön. She treated him as if he were
her own child, and allowed neither the king nor the queen to say
whether he should be bathed in warm or cold water, or what he
should eat, or how often he should take the air, or when he should
be put to bed. You would hardly believe me, if I were to tell how
quickly the baby prince got rid of his ailments, and grew fat, and
rosy, and strong, and how he had two rows of ivory teeth in less
time than any other little fellow, before or since. Instead of the
palest, and wretchedest, and puniest imp in the world (as his own
mother confessed him to be when Ceres first took him in charge), he
was now a strapping baby, crowing, laughing, kicking up his heels,
and rolling from one end of the room to the other. All the good
women of the neighborhood crowded to the palace, and held up
their hands, in unutterable amazement, at the beauty and
wholesomeness of this darling little prince. Their wonder was the
greater, because he was never seen to taste any food; not even so
much as a cup of milk.
“Pray, nurse,” the queen kept saying, “how is it that you make the
child thrive so?”
“I was a mother once,” Ceres always replied; “and having nursed
my own child, I know what other children need.”
But Queen Metanira, as was very natural, had a great curiosity to
know precisely what the nurse did to her child. One night, therefore,
she hid herself in the chamber where Ceres and the little prince
were accustomed to sleep. There was a fire in the chimney, and it
had now crumbled into great coals and embers, which lay glowing
on the hearth, with a blaze flickering up now and then, and flinging
a warm and ruddy light upon the walls. Ceres sat before the hearth
with the child in her lap, and the firelight making her shadow dance
upon the ceiling overhead. She undressed the little prince, and
bathed him all over with some fragrant liquid out of a vase. The next
thing she did was to rake back the red embers, and make a hollow
place among them, just where the backlog had been. At last, while
the baby was crowing, and clapping its fat little hands, and laughing
in the nurse’s face (just as you may have seen your little brother or
sister do before going into its warm bath), Ceres suddenly laid him,
all naked as he was, in the hollow among the red-hot embers. She
then raked the ashes over him, and turned quietly away.
You may imagine, if you can, how Queen Metanira shrieked,
thinking nothing less than that her dear child would be burned to a
cinder. She burst forth from her hiding-place, and running to the
hearth, raked open the fire, and snatched up poor little Prince
Demophoön out of his bed of live coals, one of which he was
gripping in each of his fists. He immediately set up a grievous cry, as
babies are apt to do when rudely startled out of a sound sleep. To
the queen’s astonishment and joy, she could perceive no token of
the child’s being injured by the hot fire in which he had lain. She
now turned to Mother Ceres, and asked her to explain the mystery.
“Foolish woman,” answered Ceres, “did you not promise to intrust
this poor infant entirely to me? You little know the mischief you have
done him. Had you left him to my care, he would have grown up like
a child of celestial birth, endowed with superhuman strength and
intelligence, and would have lived forever. Do you imagine that
earthly children are to become immortal without being tempered to
it in the fiercest heat of the fire? But you have ruined your own son.
For though he will be a strong man and a hero in his day, yet, on
account of your folly, he will grow old, and finally die, like the sons
of other women. The weak tenderness of his mother has cost the
poor boy an immortality. Farewell.”
Saying these words, she kissed the little prince, Demophoön, and
sighed to think what he had lost, and took her departure without
heeding Queen Metanira, who entreated her to remain, and cover up
the child among the hot embers as often as she pleased. Poor baby!
He never slept so warmly again.
While she dwelt in the king’s palace, Mother Ceres had been so
continually occupied with taking care of the young prince, that her
heart was a little lightened of its grief for Proserpina. But now,
having nothing else to busy herself about, she became just as
wretched as before. At length, in her despair, she came to the
dreadful resolution that not a stalk of grain, nor a blade of grass, not
a potato, nor a turnip, nor any other vegetable that was good for
man or beast to eat, should be suffered to grow until her daughter
were restored. She even forbade the flowers to bloom, lest
somebody’s heart should be cheered by their beauty.
Now, as not so much as a head of asparagus ever presumed to
poke itself out of the ground, without the especial permission of
Ceres, you may conceive what a terrible calamity had here fallen
upon the earth. The husbandmen ploughed and planted as usual;
but there lay the rich black furrows, all as barren as a desert of
sand. The pastures looked as brown in the sweet month of June as
ever they did in chill November. The rich man’s broad acres and the
cottager’s small garden-patch were equally blighted. Every little girl’s
flower-bed showed nothing but dry stalks. The old people shook
their white heads, and said that the earth had grown aged like
themselves, and was no longer capable of wearing the warm smile
of summer on its face. It was really piteous to see the poor, starving
cattle and sheep, how they followed behind Ceres, lowing and
bleating, as if their instinct taught them to expect help from her; and
everybody that was acquainted with her power besought her to have
mercy on the human race, and, at all events, to let the grass grow.
But Mother Ceres, though naturally of an affectionate disposition,
was now inexorable.
“Never,” said she. “If the earth is ever again to see any verdure, it
must first grow along the path which my daughter will tread in
coming back to me.”
 Finally, as there seemed to be no other remedy, our old friend
Quicksilver was sent post haste to King Pluto, in hopes that he might
be persuaded to undo the mischief he had done, and to set
everything right again, by giving up Proserpina. Quicksilver
accordingly made the best of his way to the great gate, took a flying
leap right over the three-headed mastiff, and stood at the door of
the palace in an inconceivably short time. The servants knew him
both by his face and garb; for his short cloak, and his winged cap
and shoes, and his snaky staff had often been seen thereabouts in
times gone by. He requested to be shown immediately into the king’s
presence; and Pluto, who heard his voice from the top of the stairs,
and who loved to recreate himself with Quicksilver’s merry talk,
called out to him to come up. And while they settle their business
together, we must inquire what Proserpina has been doing ever
since we saw her last.
The child had declared, as you may remember, that she would not
taste a mouthful of food as long as she should be compelled to
remain in King Pluto’s palace. How she contrived to maintain her
resolution, and at the same time to keep herself tolerably plump and
rosy, is more than I can explain; but some young ladies, I am given
to understand, possess the faculty of living on air, and Proserpina
seems to have possessed it, too. At any rate, it was now six months
since she left the outside of the earth; and not a morsel, so far as
the attendants were able to testify, had yet passed between her
teeth. This was the more creditable to Proserpina, inasmuch as King
Pluto had caused her to be tempted, day after day, with all manner
of sweetmeats, and richly preserved fruits, and delicacies of every
sort, such as young people are generally most fond of. But her good
mother had often told her of the hurtfulness of these things; and for
that reason alone, if there had been no other, she would have
resolutely refused to taste them.
All this time, being of a cheerful and active disposition, the little
damsel was not quite so unhappy as you may have supposed. The
immense palace had a thousand rooms, and was full of beautiful and
wonderful objects. There was a never-ceasing gloom, it is true,
which half hid itself among the innumerable pillars, gliding before
the child as she wandered among them, and treading stealthily
behind her in the echo of her footsteps. Neither was all the dazzle of
the precious stones, which flamed with their own light, worth one
gleam of natural sunshine; nor could the most brilliant of the many-
colored gems, which Proserpina had for playthings, vie with the
simple beauty of the flowers she used to gather. But, still wherever
the girl went, among those gilded halls and chambers, it seemed as
if she carried nature and sunshine along with her, and as if she
scattered dewy blossoms on her right hand and on her left. After
Proserpina came, the palace was no longer the same abode of
stately artifice and dismal magnificence that it had before been. The
inhabitants all felt this, and King Pluto more than any of them.
“My own little Proserpina,” he used to say, “I wish you could like
me a little better. We gloomy and cloudy-natured persons have often
as warm hearts at bottom, as those of a more cheerful character. If
you would only stay with me of your own accord, it would make me
happier than the possession of a hundred such palaces as this.”
“Ah,” said Proserpina, “you should have tried to make me like you
before carrying me off. And the best thing you can do now is, to let
me go again. Then I might remember you sometimes, and think that
you were as kind as you knew how to be. Perhaps, too, one day or
other, I might come back, and pay you a visit.”
Welcome to Our Bookstore - The Ultimate Destination for Book Lovers
Are you passionate about books and eager to explore new worlds of
knowledge? At our website, we offer a vast collection of books that
cater to every interest and age group. From classic literature to
specialized publications, self-help books, and children’s stories, we
have it all! Each book is a gateway to new adventures, helping you
expand your knowledge and nourish your soul
Experience Convenient and Enjoyable Book Shopping Our website is more
than just an online bookstore—it’s a bridge connecting readers to the
timeless values of culture and wisdom. With a sleek and user-friendly
interface and a smart search system, you can find your favorite books
quickly and easily. Enjoy special promotions, fast home delivery, and
a seamless shopping experience that saves you time and enhances your
love for reading.
Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and
personal growth!

ebookball.com