########################################
#Written by David Tam, 1999.           #       
#davidkftam@netscape.net Copyright 1999#  
########################################

From tamda@ecf.toronto.edu Mon Jul 12 18:28:41 1999
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 23:49:15 -0500 (EST)
From: David Kar Fai Tam <tamda@ecf.toronto.edu>
To: APS 424S <aps424@chem-eng.toronto.edu>
Subject: #17-03/09/99-"Empire building for dummies"


The Globe and Mail, Friday, March 5, 1999, B9.

    This article is an interview with the founder of the
"... For Dummies" series of books. John Kilcullen is the 
person who started this series for IDG Books Worldwide, Inc.
There are now about 400 hundred titles in the series and it is 
well-known in North America for its power of turning complicated
subjects into a simple and understandable form.

   In the interview, Mr. Kilcullen discussed the 4P's of marketing.
His 4P's were
  1) positioning: to create a strategic position which has defined
                  the market to his advantage
  2) packaging: attention-getting yellow covers
  3) point of sale: understanding the need to rise above the noise
                    and have appropriate off-self merchandising
                    solutions
  4) publicity: publicity about the quality of the books from
                reviewers, consumers, and word of mouth

  Interestingly, Mr Kilcullen believes that the paridigm in
marketing has changed; it's no longer about marketing, it's about
branding.  He believes there is a very high value in branding a
product. It gives his company and their products and edge in the 
marketplace.

  I believe that in today's society, of more on-the-job and 
off-the-job pressure, there is something lacking that used to
be present in the "good old days".  Judging from the titles of
the For Dummies books, Golf, Wine, Gardening, Sex, Cooking, etc...
it seems as if society pressed for time. 24 hours is not enough in a
day to accomplish all of our daily tasks.  We are no longer learning
how to do simple things for ourselves. We need to be told how to do 
things because we don't have time to learn for ourselves. For
instance, do we really need a Sex For Dummies book? 

   Despite the current dismal state of society, we can learn a 
few valuable business matters from the popularity of these books.
From a marketing perspective, we can see that there was definitely
a need for these books. There was a demand and luckily for IDG, they
stumbled across it and are now satisfying it very well. As we had 
learned from the previous case study on the Yaka-Boochee, there must 
be a demand for your products. A product should not be supply-driven.
If a demand isn't there, a way must be found to create demand, or to 
alter the product to satisfy another close-by demand.

   We can see that the For Dummies series has hit a home run in the 
area of market demand. As well, they are finding new demands in other
areas unrelated to the traditional technical field. As well as demand,
quality is also important, given that there is now a number of 
imitations out there. I believe that is why Mr. Kilcullen believes
branding is very important. It's very important to the For Dummies
series and will be the key to their success.