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DOI: 10.1355/ae24-2h Think ASEAN! Rethinking Marketing toward ASEAN Community 2015. By Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya, and Hooi Den Huan. Singapore: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Pp. 192.
This book can be considered as the first book that exposes the practical implications of ASEAN economic integration on businesses, especially in marketing. In a nutshell, this book explores what ASEAN means for businesses. The importance comes mainly from the fact that there has been much things said about ASEAN integration, but business communities have complained that there is little that they have seen and experienced arising from the benefits of integration.
Think ASEAN! is a counter to those sceptical views. By outlining the success stories of marketing companies in Southeast Asia, the book provides compelling cause for businesses to see ASEAN as an integrated community offering high potential and lucrative markets. It makes reading the book imperative as a lesson for companies and entrepreneurs with intentions to go global, as it will show them that seizing the potential in this region would be the way to go.
For academics and policy-makers, Think ASEAN! is also something they might have needed: a set of evidence showing that the regionalism mantra brings benefit for the people. In their quest for the right formula of integration in ASEAN, critics pointed that they might have forgotten the man in the street in ASEAN countries. The book shows that regional integration has brought benefits as there are more men on the street who can fly from one ASEAN country to another with Air Asia, or more men on the streets of Jakarta, Bangkok and Manila who can taste the hot chicken-floss bun of Singapore's BreadTalk, for example.
Thus, Think ASEAN! shows that thinking, going to, and doing ASEAN as a whole brings meaning not only for business, but also for the people of ASEAN.
The book consists of three parts, with the first focusing on the theoretical models and the latter two parts elaborating more on the empirical evidence of the marketing practice in ASEAN by companies,...