Perspectives on Promotion and Database Marketing: The Collected Works of Robert C Blattberg


Greg Allenby

Quantitative marketing as a discipline started around the mid 60's and has been dominated by only a handful of individuals. Robert Blattberg is one of them and has been a leader in setting a research agenda for this discipline. The collection of articles in this book along with commentary by some of his doctoral students is a magnificent testament to the genius of Robert Blattberg. The chapters in this book are organized into six parts. The first part, titled "Early Bob", traces research which he completed during the first decade after he joined University of Chicago. The second part is titled "Statistical Bob". This part comprises papers that Robert wrote in characterizing the response of consumers to dealing. The third part is titled "Promotional Bob", and covers roughly a ten-year stretch from 1987 to 1996. The fourth part titled "Big Bob", describes Robert's contribution to and impact on marketing practice. The fifth part is titled "Direct Bob", and focuses on what customer level data should be gathered, how they should be organized, linked and analyzed, and what metrics should be used to assess customer value. The sixth and final part titled "Micro-Macro Bob", is not genre or area specific as much as an illustration of Robert's overall research interests in marketing-mix modeling.