Choice Review

Offering a novel strategy for business success, this clearly written book compares the buying of goods and services to the personal experience of attending the theater. The authors, management consultants, emphasize the importance for organizations in every industry to stage interesting experiences for their customers, for which customers will pay high prices, rather than selling standard, commoditized products and services at low prices. Although the ideas presented are well known to marketing scholars and experienced marketing managers, this work will be helpful to practitioners who want ideas on how to differentiate their products and services more successfully. The authors give many excellent examples of companies that are already staging these experiences for their customers. They strongly advise businesses to interact frequently with their customers to learn their particular wants, needs, and differences. This customer interaction will give companies the information they need to provide individualized service to each customer, thus reducing "consumer sacrifice," which results with mass commoditization. Chapter-end bibliographies include articles mainly from the practical business press. Particularly useful to marketing managers, this book is recommended for undergraduate and practitioner collections. D. W. Huffmire; University of Connecticut