This handbook gives an overview of academic research on one facet of marketing: quantitative models. Its 17 chapters, by 28 contributors, give a rather traditional overview of selected types of marketing models, including: consumer decision-making models; marketing mix models; customer-centric marketing models; special models, such as time series, neural networks, and genetic algorithms; return on marketing models; and implementation. Very few chapters include numerical examples or any examples at all, and there is only one short part on two industry-specific models--movie industry and pharmaceuticals.

After providing background in chapter 1, Part 2 deals with conjoint analysis and interactive decision aids--restricted to possible use in clerking, advising, banking, and tutoring. Other largely used multivariate techniques in marketing, such as correspondence analysis, factor analysis, and clustering, with or without time-dependent extensions, are not covered. Similarly, the discussion of agent-based techniques is very short, in relation to current research and implementations in the field.

Part 3 addresses advertising models, sales promotion and sales management models, and competitive responsiveness. One would expect Web-based advertising traffic analysis and management to be described here, or in the later chapter on e-commerce, but innovations and algorithms used in industry are not covered. By contrast, promotion models to customers and by stores, respectively, are given excellent coverage and structure, and include: store switching, category switching, customer learning, cannibalization and deceleration, and plus normative models for manufacturers and retailers. Game theory relevance in marketing, while extensively researched, receives scant attention--only two pages.

Part 4 covers models of customer value, theoretical models in customer relationship management, and e-commerce, mostly restricted to ex-post analysis of site use and purchase. The importance of customer profiling, online segmentation, and dynamics is not addressed. The discussion between multiple channels neither uses results from media-based marketing, nor initial lessons from mobile marketing.

Part 5 contains general introductions to time series models (state space and Kalman filtering, from control theory), neural networks, and genetic algorithms in marketing; no mention is given to scalability and verification issues, as implemented in industrial data mining tools that also rely on other techniques.

Part 6 consists of two interesting chapters on industry-specific models, with lessons on the applicability of decision support systems and vertical strategies; it would have been useful to have cross-references or evaluations in these two industry contexts to the models used elsewhere in the volume.

Part 7 is limited to one very important chapter on models for the financial performance effects of marketing; this part should have been expanded to include brand capital growth and decline models, as well as other intangible measures of returns on marketing investment.

Finally, Part 8 is a discussion, or an academic promotion, of the implementation and use of quantitative marketing models, with a categorization of academic publications by theories and organizational positioning of marketing decisions; there is almost no discussion of gains and losses versus other more mainstream marketing techniques. This part and the introductory chapter are bound to generate a healthy debate on mutual influences of different marketing research schools and practices, especially at a time when sociology, culture, and other societal issues are gaining importance. As the editor, Wierenga, writes in chapter 1: “The acceptance and use of marketing decision models has been a continuing problem.” This volume consolidates one view of this issue, from established quantitative methodologies, but does not investigate enough other types of marketing models, such as cognitive, consumer behaviorist, social, and those based on mass customization.

Each chapter contains a very sizable bibliography, which leads to an impressive consolidated citations index of over 1,000 authors. The volume is a valuable reference for academic researchers and for students writing theses in quantitative marketing models.