philip kotler's contributions to marketing theory and practice

PHILIP KOTLER’S CONTRIBUTIONS

TO MARKETING THEORY AND

PRACTICE

Philip Kotler

ABSTRACT

The author describes how he entered the marketing field and describes hiscontributions in four sections: articles written, books published, studentsnurtured, and executives consulted and trained. He describes his contribu-tions to the marketing field in nine areas: marketing theory andorientations, improving the role and practice of marketing, analyticalmarketing, the social and ethical side of marketing, globalization andinternational marketing competition, marketing in the new economy,creating and managing the product mix, strategic marketing, and broad-ening the concept and application of marketing.

It is an honor to be invited by the Review of Marketing Research to write anarticle about my contributions in the field of marketing.

Because this will largely be an intellectual article, I would like to supplysome background on how I entered the field of marketing. I received myMA in economics in 1953 at the University of Chicago where I studiedunder Nobel economist Milton Friedman and I became a ‘‘free market’’economist. I went for my Ph.D. in economics to M.I.T. and I studied under

Review of Marketing Research: Special Issue – Marketing Legends

Review of Marketing Research, Volume 8, 87–120

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Nobel economists Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow. Needless to say, Ibecame a Keynesian economist, believing that the government had apositive role to play in resuscitating an economy that was in the throes of arecession or depression.

When I was invited to join the business school faculty at NorthwesternUniversity in 1962, I was given a choice between teaching economics andmarketing. I decided to teach marketing for two reasons. The first was thatif such gifted Nobel prize-winning economists could not agree, I wasunlikely to develop a new theory to bridge the gap between these differentviews of economic science. The second was that marketing appealed to meas an area of economics that economists had failed to cover. Economistsspoke mostly about the role of the price system in determining the demandfor goods and services, and they said very little about the role of otherdemand factors – advertising, sales force, sales promotions, productfeatures, and channels of distribution – in affecting demand. My hope wasto study and teach marketing so that it would become part of the corpus ofeconomic theory. I called myself a ‘‘market economist’’ in contrast to amacro-economist or a micro-economist. I felt that economists needed tomodel the real-world dynamics of the marketplace, and this would helpenrich their diagnoses and prescriptions.

My work in marketing started in 1962 at Northwestern University’sBusiness School (later named the Kellogg School of Management). I havebeen thinking and doing marketing for 48 years.

I believe that my contributions to the field of marketing came about in thefollowing four ways:

1. Articles written2. Books published3. Students nurtured4. Executives consulted and trained

I will comment on each of these in the following.

CONTRIBUTIONS THROUGH ARTICLES WRITTEN

I have published 147 articles in peer-reviewed journals. When ProfessorJagdish Sheth invited me to be published as a Legend in Marketing, Iproceeded to group my 147 articles into nine categories. A volume wouldappear in each category containing my relevant articles along with thecomments of three or four professors familiar with that category who would

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assess my contributions. Readers of this article can check the assessments ofother scholars of my work in the Legend series.

The nine volumes containing my articles are listed below along with thecommentators. The first listed person is the volume editor who organizedthe volume and invited the others to participate:

1. Marketing Theory and Orientations (Ravi Achrol, John Narver, TorgerReve, Bob Spekman)

2. Improving the Role and Practice of Marketing (Tim Ambler, PatrickBarwise, Hugh Davidson, Winston Fletcher)

3. Analytical Marketing (Robert Blattberg, Anne Coughlan, LakshmanKristhnamurthi, Andy Zoltners)

4. The Social and Ethical Side of Marketing (Paul Bloom, Sonya Grier, PatMurphy, Kash Rangan)

5. Globalization and International Marketing Competition (MichaelCzinkota, Coskun Samli, Charles Skoba, Isabelle Szmigin)

6. Marketing in the New Economy (Patrick DuParcq, Ward Hanson,Ed Malthouse, Das Narayndas)

7. Creating and Managing the Product Mix (Venkatesh Shankar, BarryBayus, Satish Jayachandran, Rajan Vardarajan)

8. Strategic Marketing (Glen Urban, John Roberts, Al Silk, Jerry Wind,)9. Broadening the Concept and Application of Marketing (Bill Wilkie, Alan

Andreasen, Sid Levy, Jerry Zaltman)

In what follows I will describe the key articles in each group and theirintended contribution.

Volume 1: Marketing Theory and Orientations

I have had a long-standing interest in marketing theory and philosophies. Irealized early that marketing means different things to different managersand different members of the public. In the popular mind, marketing is aname for the activities of advertising, sales promotion, and sales force. A1997 Webster dictionary gave the following definition of marketing: ‘‘Theact or practice of advertising and selling a product’’(Random HouseWebster’s Dictionary of American English, 1997). Many companies did nothave a marketing department, but they certainly had a sales force andtypically spent some money on ads and promotions.

Even in companies with a marketing department, most of their workcomprised promotional activities and a small part consisted of marketing

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research and data collection. I felt that effective marketing called for muchmore than promotion and a few other activities. Marketing should includedecisions on what products and services to offer, how to price them, how toput them into distribution, and how to promote them.

In 1960, I was selected as one of 50 business school professors to attend aspecial one-year Ford Foundation program at Harvard in higher mathe-matics. The training program aimed to update the mathematical andresearch skills of the 50 carefully selected business school professors. Thisgroup included several marketing professors: Jerry McCarthy, Frank Bass,Ed Pessemier, and Robert Buzzell. Jerry McCarthy at that time waspreparing the first edition of his Principles of Marketing. He organized hismaterial around what he called the 4Ps: Product, Price, Place, andPromotion. Jerry had done his Ph.D. work at Northwestern Universitywith Professor Richard Clewett who organized his course around Product,Price, Distribution, and Promotion. Jerry replaced ‘‘distribution’’ with‘‘place.’’ This became the famous 4Ps. I found the 4Ps to be what I waslooking for to get marketing out of being strictly about promotion.

Later, I came to realize that the 4Ps represented the tactical ‘‘tools’’ ofmarketing practice. Tactical Marketing needed to be preceded by StrategicMarketing. One concept that intrigued me was ‘‘market segmentation’’(Smith, 1956). Another was positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout (Ries &Trout, 1982). I had an ‘‘Ah Ha’’ experience when I combined these conceptswith ‘‘targeting’’ into the notion of segmentation, targeting and positioning(STP), which I then made popular in my Marketing Management textbook.

So I viewed the marketing planning process as consisting of the followingsix steps:

� Situational analysis - Goal and objectives setting - STP - 4Ps -Implementation - Control.

But I also realized that this planning process is sterile without a deepersense of the customer as a starting point. Too many companies simply madea product and then tried to sell it to everyone (product orientation), oftenputting their emphasis on sales power (selling orientation) or on technicalinnovation.

I believed that everything should start with the company choosing whatcustomers and what customer need(s) the company is trying to satisfy (e.g.,for Mercedes, the customer is affluent and wants a luxury car experiencethat impresses the buyer and others). When a company starts with customerthinking, I called it a customer orientation.


Later on, I recognized that not all customer needs should be catered to.Satisfying some needs would harm customers in the long run (e.g., cigarettesmoking), and some will harm others as well (e.g., drug addiction).Marketingneeded to pay more attention to the social, health, and environmental effectsof consumption. I formulated the idea of the Societal Marketing Concept,namely that the company should produce a product that satisfies a need whilenot harming the consumer, those around the consumer, or the society as awhole.

When developing and contrasting these varying philosophies for guidingthe company’s marketing, I started to dig more deeply into theory. Whatwas the essential anchoring concept in marketing? As an economist, I knewthat the core concept in economics is ‘‘scarcity’’ and how to efficientlyallocate scarce resources among its many claimants. What about marketing?It seemed to me that ‘‘exchange’’ is the core concept. Marketing is notabout making things or using things but exchanging things. In my article‘‘A generic concept of marketing’’ (Kotler, 1972), I listed the following fiveconditions for exchange:

1. There are at least two parties.2. Each party has something that might be of value to the other party.3. Each party is capable of communication and delivery.4. Each party is free to accept or reject the exchange offer.5. Each party believes it is appropriate or desirable to deal with the other

party.

Then I began to realize that marketing’s main purpose was to influencedemand. Economists have always talked about demand and supply, and mythought was that demand should be the province of the marketers.Economists limited their analysis to how price and economic and seasonalconditions affect demand. I thought that demand is influenced by manymarketing activities, including advertising, sales force, sales promotion,giveaways, guaranties, and many other factors. If they did not influencedemand, why would companies spend money on them?

Most companies on most occasions want to increase demand for theirproduct or service. But I then realized that this is not always the goal. Morespecifically, a company could shape three aspects of demand: its level, timing,and composition. The company might want to raise the level of demand, or intimes of shortages, it might want to lower the level of demand. Or a soft drinkcompany such as Coca Cola may be happy with its overall annual sales butwould like to influence the timing of demand by attracting more sales inwinter, whichwere usually slowermonths.Or a hotel such as the Four Seasons

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might want to alter the composition of demand, namely, who they want asguests: they would welcome affluent people but would discourage loud andnoisy people. I began to realize that marketing may have many more tasksthan simply expanding demand and I published ‘‘The major tasks ofmarketing management’’ (Kotler, 1973b) in the Journal of Marketing andlisted eight tasks given in Table 1.

In my subsequent writings, I touched on all of these demand states. Iparticularly wrote extensively on the last two demand states.

Overfull demand describes a situation where the demand is too high andthere is broad consensus that demand should be reduced. During the oilcrisis of 1973, the price of oil shot up and people were exhorted to reducetheir driving. Another example is when California faced a severe watershortage and urged its citizens to reduce their water usage by showeringquicker and less frequently, watering their lawns less often, and installingmore efficient showerheads and toilets. This led Professor Sidney Levy andme to publish ‘‘Demarketing, yes, demarketing’’ (Kotler & Levy, 1971) inthe Harvard Business Review, which caught a lot of attention as a systematicway that regulators could discourage the use of a scarce resource. Today, Ihave returned to this theme and I believe that we are moving from an Age ofMarketing to an Age of Demarketing. Our environmental consciousnessand the desire for sustainability is getting us to recognize the worldwideshortage of water, the poor quality of air caused by the burning of coal, theshortage of timber resulting from clandestine deforestation, the problem ofoverfishing, and the depletion of various minerals.

The last listed demand state, unwholesome demand, prompted my interestin seeing whether marketing had anything to say about changing the demandfor ‘‘bads’’ as opposed to ‘‘goods.’’ Not all goods and services are good.

Table 1. The Basic Marketing Tasks.

Demand State Marketing Task Formal Name

I Negative demand Disabuse demand Conversional marketing

II No demand Create demand Stimulational marketing

III Latent demand Develop demand Developmental marketing

IV Faltering demand Revitalize demand Remarketing

V Irregular demand Synchronize demand Synchromarketing

VI Full demand Maintain demand Maintenance marketing

VII Overfull demand Reduce demand Demarketing

VIII Unwholesome demand Destroy demand Countermarketing


Before I discuss this, I must mention my interest in ‘‘broadening theconcept of marketing.’’ I realized that my thinking had been largely focusedon the ‘‘goods and services’’ basket but that other things could be marketedas well, such as places, persons, ideas, and causes. I remembered a statementof the novelist Robert Louis Stevenson that ‘‘everyone lives by sellingsomething.’’ On this insight, Sidney Levy and I wrote ‘‘Broadening theconcept of marketing’’ (Kotler & Levy, 1969). This article fired up acontroversy. Professor David Luck thought that we were leading marketingdown a slippery slope and that the discipline’s boundaries would becomeblurred. He also thought that these other behavior systems did not have‘‘markets’’ and a price system. We decided to test this challenge with asurvey of the profession and found that the overwhelming number ofacademic marketers favored the broadened concept of marketing.

My next move was to test whether social causes (one of the newbroadened areas) could be usefully analyzed through the lens of marketing.Could organizations use marketing to help advance causes such as ‘‘say noto drugs,’’ ‘‘stop smoking,’’ ‘‘exercise daily,’’ and ‘‘eat healthier foods?’’. Iteamed up with Professor Jerry Zaltman who was on our Northwesternfaculty, and we wrote ‘‘Social marketing: An approach to planned socialchange’’ (Kotler & Zaltman, 1971).

Social marketing has remained one of my favorite areas of research. I feltthat information campaigns alone were not sufficient to drive a change inbehavior. I remember the foolishness of the U.S. Surgeon General officesending to every American’s mail box a several page brochure in small printwarning the reader about the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. The newsprintindustry made a lot of money, but I doubt if anyone read the brochure orchanged his or her behavior. I subsequently wrote a number of books onsocial marketing. Social marketing has now become an established branchof marketing with a Social Marketing Association with members fromaround the world (The Second World Social Marketing Conference tookplace in Dublin, April 11–12, 2011).

In the group of articles on Marketing Theory and Orientations, I wrote orco-wrote a few other articles that contained some new ideas. In ‘‘Buying ismarketing too’’ (Kotler & Levy, 1973), Sidney Levy and I argued thatmarketing is not only done by ‘‘sellers’’ but also by ‘‘buyers.’’ Suppose abuyer wants to rent a certain apartment but the seller is reluctant to rent it tothe buyer. The seller might be biased against the buyer’s race or may want toreserve the apartment for a friend or want to hold out for more money. Thebuyer will have to turn on his charms: he will want to show that he will be awell-behaved tenant; he may offer to pay a higher rent than normal; he may

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offer other inducements to the seller. In any negotiation, both the buyer andthe seller can be seen as marketing to each other.

I later realized that a demand outcome is also influenced by thesurrounding atmosphere. In ‘‘Atmospherics as a marketing tool’’ (Kotler,1973b). I comment how the buyer is affected by visual (color, size, shape,and brightness), auditory (volume, pitch), olfactory (scent and freshness),tactile (softness, smoothness, and temperature), and other sensory factors inthe immediate environment. Thus, a consumer who is shopping for a bankmay walk into one bank and be turned off by its colors, design, andfurnishings and walk into another bank and find it very pleasant andwelcoming. Every professional (lawyer, physician, and psychiatrist) needs tobe aware of the effect of the office atmosphere on the clients. Lawyers wanttheir offices to look orderly and professional rather than full of piles of papersand a general unkempt look causing the prospective client to worry aboutwhether his case file will be lost or whether the lawyer is too busy to give hiscase enough time. Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the roleplayed by sensory factors in consumer choice behavior (Lindstrom, 2008).

In ‘‘From market driven to market driving’’ (Kumar, Sheer, & Kotler,2000), Professors Nirmalya Kumar, Lisa Sheer, and I argue that meetingexisting customer needs is the first step in effective marketing but may not besufficient to enhance customers’ lives. Selling a good working telephone tocustomers would satisfy their need; creating an iPhone or iPad wouldenhance their lives. The fact that customers did not know that an iPhone ispossible should not stop Steve Jobs for making one and promoting it tocustomers. Being market-driven is fine, but being market-driving is evenbetter.

In ‘‘Megamarketing’’ (Kotler, 1986b), I claim that the 4Ps might notsuffice to win a market, especially if the market is blocked by individuals ororganizations from purchasing the product. Suppose the health minister in acountry refuses to let a certain drug be sold in this country that is reallyneeded by patients. He may disbelieve in the drug’s efficacy or he may wanta bribe. The pharmaceutical firm has two options in its toolkit. The firm canapply Power by asking the U.S. government to contact the prime minister toput pressure on his minister of health. Or the pharmaceutical firm may usepublic relations to organize the physicians and the public in that countryto pressure the health minister to let the drug in. It is a matter of power(push) or public relations (pull), two additional ‘‘P’’ tools in the marketer’stactical toolkit.

In ‘‘From mass marketing to mass customization’’ (Kotler, 1989), Icelebrate the evolution of marketing from making one standard product to


sell to everyone (Coca Cola) to being able to make a customized productfor each person. I detail examples such as Levi Jeans offering a tailored jeanfor each individual, a Japanese bicycle company customizing the bicycle forindividuals, Dell computer customizing the computer, and other examples. Inote how technology has brought down the cost of mass customization andthat in many product categories the customer can get precisely what he orshe wants.

Volume 2: Improving the Role and Practice of Marketing

I have published 18 articles on improving the role and practice of marketing.I will describe the more important articles.

One of my major interests lies in convincing companies to implement themarketing concept, to become customer-driven if not customer-driving. In1965, I published ‘‘Diagnosing the marketing takeover (Kotler, 1965a,1965b, 1965c, 1965d), where I argued that the marketing concept needs toplay a larger role in the company’s strategic planning. I distinguished threelevels of marketing’s role in a company:

� Marketing manages the traditional functions of advertising, sales force,sales promotion, marketing research, and pricing.� Marketing manages some additional functions such as supply chainmanagement and credit.� Marketing manages the planning of the company’s business growth.

I point out that at whatever level marketing operates, it will inevitably getinto conflicts with other functions: engineering, purchasing, manufacturing,inventory management, finance, accounting, and credit. I illustrate how eachconflict arises from the different goals and responsibilities of each function.My aim is to sensitize marketers to what lies ahead in their attempt toexpand their contribution and influence within the organization.

I elaborated further on consumer orientation in ‘‘From sales obsession tomarketing effectiveness’’ (Kotler, 1977), I contrasted how differentlymarketing and sales people think about customers and the marketplace. Idesigned an instrument that a company could use to answer whether itpossessed marketing effectiveness. The company had to rate its standing onfive attributes: customer philosophy, integrated marketing organization,adequate marketing information, operational efficiency, and strategicorientation. This article was a best seller as many companies wanted toassess whether they exhibited a strong marketing orientation.

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This article then inspired a follow-on article with coauthors WilliamGregory and William Rodgers called ‘‘The marketing audit comes of age’’(Kotler, Gregory, & Rodgers, 1977). A marketing audit is a much morethorough examination of a company’s marketing effectiveness than theMarketing Effectiveness Instrument previously described. We defined amarketing audit as a ‘‘comprehensive, systematic, independent and periodicexamination of a company or business unit’s marketing environment,objectives, strategies and activities with a view of determining problem areasand opportunities and recommend a plan of action to improve thecompany’s marketing performance.’’ We described the steps in the wholeprocess of carrying out a marketing audit. Since then, many consulting firmshave applied the marketing audit instrument to help companies improvetheir marketing organization, strategies, and policies.

In 2006, I worked with Neil Rackham and Suj Krishnaswamy to examinethe tensions in the relationship between marketing and sales in ‘‘Ending thewar between marketing and sales’’ (Kotler, Rackham, & Krishnaswamy,2006). We distinguished between four levels of relationship betweenmarketing and sales: undefined relationship, defined relationship, alignedrelationship, and integrated relationship. Even when the two functions havecarefully defined their separate goals and responsibilities, they may not actwith a sense of alignment, let alone integration. Marketing thinks that salesis primarily responsible for executing the marketing plan whether or notsales had participated in developing the plan. But sales may function poorlybecause sales think that marketing set prices too high, developed too bland avalue proposition, or gave them poor leads. We offered several recommen-dations for improving the joint performance of marketing and sales and thearticle achieved a wide distribution.

I wrote a piece with JohnWestman in 2006 ‘‘What CEOs need to know anddo about marketing’’ (Kotler & Westman, 2006). Many CEOs, especially ofsmaller companies and B2B type companies, come from engineering, law,or accounting and have a limited understanding of the marketing disciplineand its demand-producing power. We presented the most current view abouthow CEOs should view marketing, and we included some instruments to helpthem rate and improve the marketing management process.

This was followed by an article with Robert Shaw ‘‘Rethinking thechain: Make marketing leaner, faster and better’’ (Shaw & Kotler, 2009),where we established where marketing waste occurs, not only in advertisingbut also in several other areas. We showed that marketing efficiencythinking has come a long way from the much-quoted earlier statementof John Wanamaker, ‘‘Half of my advertising is wasted but I don’t knowwhich half.’’


Volume 3: Analyzing Marketing

I have had a long-standing interest in applying mathematical analysis tomarketing processes and problems, much stemming from my Harvardtraining in the 1960 Ford Foundation program to encourage moremathematical analysis in business decision making. This volume includes18 articles. I will just highlight a few of them.

In 1963, I wrote ‘‘The use of mathematical models in marketing’’ (Kotler,1963) to describe to marketing academics and business managers theessential mathematical tools they should consider using in analyzingmarketing problems. I reviewed and illustrated matrix algebra, calculus,probability theory, and simulation and showed how they applied in areassuch as allocation models, competitive strategy models, brand switchingmodels, waiting line models, and critical path scheduling models. I went onlater to write a whole book, Marketing Decision Making: A Model-BuildingApproach (Kotler, 1971a, 1971b, 1971c) to show how we can move towardoptimizing marketing decision making with the use of these tools.

I developed a particular interest in optimizing the selection of advertisingmedia using the computer. I published two articles on computerized mediaselection (Kotler, 1964; Kotler, 1966a, 1966b). Another strong interest ofmine was in using computer simulation for modeling complex competitivesituations. My 1965 article ‘‘The competitive marketing simulator – A newmanagement tool’’ (Kotler, 1965a, 1965b, 1965c, 1965d) won the McKinseyAward for the second best article that year in the California ManagementReview. I followed it with ‘‘Evaluating competitive marketing strategiesthrough computer simulation’’ (Kotler, 1966a, 1966b) in 1966 where Imodeled the interaction of two competitors following explicit and separatedecision rules to find how the market share would finally settle between them.

In 1970, I published ‘‘Corporate models: Better marketing plans’’ (Kotler,1970) in theHarvard Business Review. I chose a company, in this case a candyproducer, and showedhowwe couldmodel the company’smarketing decisionsin terms of input–output relations and then simulate the company’s alternativestrategies to see which strategy promised the best return. Today, we are finallyseeing specializedfirmsoffering tohelp companies buildmodels of the sales andcost functions so that they could identify the optimal marketing mix strategy.

Volume 4: The Social and Ethical Side of Marketing

I have a strong interest in the social and ethical aspects of marketing and Iincluded 17 of my articles in this volume. I will review a few of them here.

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The early 1970s was a period of great social unrest and social action. Asan economist and a trained social scientist, I became interested in the theoryof social action. In 1971, I published ‘‘Elements of social action’’ (Kotler,1971a, 1971b, 1971c) in the American Behavioral Scientist. The articlepresented a typology of social problems involving five Cs, namely, a cause,change agency, change targets, channels, and a channel strategy. Itdistinguished three types of causes, namely, helping causes, protest causes,and revolutionary causes and what made them effective. The change agentcould use one of three strategies to produce change, namely, a powerstrategy, a persuasive strategy, and a re-educative strategy. Each socialmovement had a life cycle moving through a crusading stage, popularmovement stage, managerial stage, and ending up in a bureaucratic stage.This article was my effort to theorize about how social movements getstarted and the factors that affect their success or failure.

One of the social movements that I researched was consumerism. Ipublished ‘‘What consumerism means to marketers’’ (Kotler, 1971a, 1971b,1971c) in the Harvard Business Review in 1971. Consumerism is a socialmovement seeking to augment the rights of buyers in relation to sellers. Ithappens when a growing number of consumers get angry in reaction tounsafe products, price gouging, poor information, and other abuses in themarketplace that put them at a disadvantage. I postulated that consumerismin America grew in five stages as shown in Exhibit 1:

A social movement such as consumerism does not start unless certainstructural conditions exist, such as an advanced economy, education, andcommunication. Even then, little happens until widespread discontentoccurs. It helps then if a generalized belief system emerges to justifylegitimate protest. Then it moves further if some triggering events andpersonalities appear to support the protest. Much depends on whether themass media publicizes these events and some politicians and consumerinterest groups organize for action. And the course of the social movementthen depends on whether business people and legislators resist or supportthe protest. This model can explain many social movements.

I also have a deep interest in the ethical questions connected withmarketing decision making. I explored the issues in ‘‘Ethical lapses ofmarketers’’ (Kotler, 2006) in 2006. I started the article by pointing out thatwhile college professors and physicians have a high standing in the publicmind, only 20% of the public give a good rating to marketers, only 6% givea good rating to salespeople, and only 1.9% give a good rating totelemarketers. What can we say about marketing’s role in ballyhoo, high-pressure selling, exaggerating a product’s quality, selling products that are

1. STRUCTURAL CONDUCIVENESS

• Advancing incomes and education

• Advancing complexity of technology and marketing

• Advancing exploitation of the environment

2. STRUCTURAL STRAINS

• Economic discontent (inflation)

• Social discontent (war and race)

• Ecological discontent (pollution)

• Marketing system discontent (shoddy products, gimmickry, dishonesty)

• Political discontent (unresponsive politicians and institutions)

3. GROWTH OF A GENERALIZED BELIEF

• Social critic writings (John Kenneth Galbraith, Vance Packard, Rachel Carson)

• Consumer-oriented legislators (Senator Kefauver, Senator Douglas)

• Presidential messages

• Consumer organizations

4. PRECIPITATING FACTORS

• Professional agitation (Ralph Nader)

• Spontaneous agitation (housewife picketing)

5. MOBILIZATION FOR ACTION

• Mass media coverage

• Vote-seeking politicians

6. SOCIAL CONTROL

• Business resistance or indifference

• Legislative resistance or indifference

• New consumer interest groups and organization

Exhibit 1. Factors Contributing to the Rise of Consumerism in the 1960s.


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bad for our health or safety, product obsolescence, and selling us onmaterialistic values. My article commented on the following four questions:

� Why do companies make questionable products?� What can these companies do to make these products safer?� What can be done to discourage consumption of questionable products?� Do socially responsible companies achieve higher long-run profit as aresult of their caring?

Without answering the questions here, the article did explore theimplications of different ethical systems when applied to marketing decisionmaking.

Volume 5: Globalization and International Marketing Competition

To understand marketing, one should not confine their attention to the U.S.scene. Competition is now global and we can learn from much othercountries. I published 15 articles on global matters.

Four of the articles dealt with the Japanese and their economic andmarketing prowess during the 1960 to 1990(Jatusripitak, Fahey, & Kotler,1985; Kotler & Fahey, 1985; Kotler 1985–1986; Kotler & Fahey, 1982). Oneof them, ‘‘The world’s champion marketers: The Japanese,’’ suggests howimpressed I and others were with Japan’s performance. We saw Japanesecompanies taking over industries such as automobiles, motorcycles, radioand TV, and other electronics. The Japanese were beginning to buyAmerican companies and seemed unbeatable. They were not creating newthings as much as improving on everything that we made and bringingdown the costs. In these articles, I probed into their special gifts, includinglean production, just in time production, total quality management,continuous product improvement, and other practices, and I argued thatour automobile and other industries must take note and adopt these bestpractices.

On a different question, I took strong exception to Professor Ted Levitt’sthesis in his Harvard Business Review article ‘‘Globalization of marketing’’(Levitt, 1983) that global standardization is the thing to pursue. I wassurprised that Ted would favor standardization when he was an earlyproponent of recognizing different needs requiring different solutions. Myarticle ‘‘Global standardization – Courting danger’’ (Kotler, 1986b)distinguished those cases where global standardization made sense (e.g., inelectronic products and cameras) and where localization made more sense


(e.g., food products and clothing). I pointed out that even thoughMcDonald’splans globally, it markets locally. In those few countries where it sold the strictAmerican version of its hamburger, it lost market share to competitors wholocalized more.

I devoted two articles to the question of economic development and theproblem of global stagnation. In ‘‘The potential contributions of marketingthinking to economic development’’ (Kotler, 1988), I argued that econo-mists who specialize in economic growth theory unfortunately neglectrecognizing the critical role that marketing can play in helping developingeconomies advance. I described the following five areas of contribution:

� Improving agricultural and rural development� Helping local manufacturers move into exporting� Improving domestic marketing channels to secure scale economies� Attracting foreign investment� Applying social marketing to encourage family planning and reducesmoking and alcoholism

The article also diagrams the inter-causal connections of many variablesthat affect the rate of economic development.

The other article, ‘‘Ending global stagnation: Linking the fortunes of theindustrial and developing countries’’ (Kotler & Dholakia, 1989) made theargument that the developed nations would gain to the extent that theyhelped the poorer nations to develop faster. As more poor were brought intothe working and middle class with comparable increases in their incomes,this would provide larger markets for the products of the developedcountries.

A few other articles dealt with the rise of the Asian ‘‘tiger’’ nations andthe growing interest in the marketing of places.

Volume 6: Marketing in the New Economy

The rapid advances in technology leading to the computer; Internet; cellphone; social media such as Facebook, My Space, Twitter, and Linkedin;video viewing such as YouTube; and new devices such as compact cameras,electronic book readers, iPads, and others are bound to change the marketingworld as we know it. These developments have introduced a whole onlineworld where we get abundant information about any competing products andcan order many of them online, thereby reducing the role of sales people andcertain retailers (music stores and book stores) while expanding the ability

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of consumers to talk with each other and influence each other on brandchoice. I wrote seven articles to envision the implications of the new economyfor marketing theory and practice.

Professor Ravi Achrol and I wrote ‘‘Marketing in the network economy’’(Achrol & Kotler, 1999) to show the increasing role played by networks inshaping domestic and global activity. Drucker saw the future economy as anetworked economy with knowledge workers at the helm. He saw the oldhierarchical structures of companies giving way to disaggregated networks.In our article, we observe that companies do not compete; their strategicnetworks compete. We distinguished four types of networks: internal,vertical, intermarket, and opportunity networks. We described hownetworks have put power into the hands of consumers to become producersand sellers as well.

In ‘‘Marketing in the age of information democracy’’ (Sawhney &Kotler, 2000), Professor Mohan Sawhney and I describe how the digitalworld has reduced the information asymmetry between producersand consumers. We say ‘‘(buyers) do not need to overpay out of priceignorance. They do not need to exert physical effort to consummate apurchasey the information-rich regime empowers customers with a newset of capabilities.’’ We call upon marketers to move from controllingexchanges to facilitating exchanges. Marketers must move from opaque-ness to transparency. We argue for a change in the view of marketers fromoperating as hunters to being seen as gardeners. We describe the new rolesof consumers in initiating reverse promotion, reverse advertising, reversepricing, reverse product design, and reverse distribution. Finally, weshow the rise of new ‘‘metamediaries’’ who help specific need groups toobtain all the inputs they need in one-stop shopping. Consumers willimprove their shopping efficiency through patronizing these rising Internetmetamediaries.

Volume 7: Creating and Managing the Product Mix

Companies face a number of decisions in developing a viable product mix.I will describe a few of the 10 articles in this volume.

Many companies carry some low-selling products too long throughinertia or through not wanting to disappoint a few customers. Myobservation is that most companies have not installed a system foridentifying their weak or weakening products and items nor taken steps tocorrect or eliminate them. I deal with this issue in ‘‘Phasing out weak


products’’ (Kotler, 1965a, 1965b, 1965c, 1965d). The system consists ofperiodically reviewing the sales of every product item and judging whether itis satisfactory or requiring correction or elimination. This article received alot of attention from companies that realized that they needed some systemto identify weaker products.

Getting rid of a weak product is not an easy task because of vestedinterests. In ‘‘Harvesting strategies for weak products’’ (Kotler, 1978), Ishow how to handle a weak business unit or product that is destined fordownsizing or elimination. I describe the processes of preparing, imple-menting, and monitoring the decision to apply a harvesting strategy.

I was interested in testing and evaluating different strategies for launchinga new product in my 1965 Management Science article ‘‘Competitivestrategies for new product marketing over the life cycle’’ (Kotler, 1965a,1965b, 1965c, 1965d). It was one of my more mathematically intense articles.The first part describes the market model as well as the accounting modelused by a hypothetical firm to compute its profits. The second part discussesnine conceptually different classes of marketing strategies (nonadaptivestrategy, time-dependent strategy, competitive adaptive strategy, salesresponsive strategy, profit-responsive strategy, completely adaptive strategy,diagnostic strategy, adaptive profit-maximizing strategy, and joint profitmaximizing strategy). The third part reports the results of a duopolyconfrontation involving various pairs of competitive strategies. The last partsuggests additional variations in the market model and in the strategies thatwould increase the significance of the findings.

In ‘‘Targeting prospects for a new product’’ (Kotler & Zaltman, 1976),Professor Gerry Zaltman and I explored new ways to define the bestprospects for a new product. In ‘‘Flawed products: Consumer responses andmarketing strategies’’ (Kotler & Mantrala, 1985), Professor MuraliMantrala and I distinguished several ways to market a flawed product,including lowering the price, praising the flaw, and other possibilities. In‘‘Design: A powerful but neglected strategic tool’’ (Kotler & Rath, 1984),Alex Rath and I showed how creative design concepts can lead to a muchmore successful product than when standard design is applied.

Volume 8: Strategic Marketing

I have always urged marketers to put more time into strategic thinkingbefore developing their tactical plans. I have also emphasized that strategies

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must adjust to the particular economic environment at the time, whether it isrecession, inflation, stagflation, or shortages. I will describe a few of theseven articles in this volume.

In 1973, the U.S. economy moved from a period of abundant goods to aperiod of severe shortages in oil, chemicals, electricity, natural gas, cement,aluminum, copper, textiles, paper, and glass. I published ‘‘Marketing duringperiods of shortage’’ (Kotler, 1974) to provide a perspective on this neweconomic environment. The Age of Abundance was now moving into theAge of Shortages. Companies had to turn to demarketing because there wasno need to build demand further. Some persons thought that marketingpersonnel and departments would be made redundant. Companies had tomake hard decisions about which customers deserve to have their ordersfilled, how much higher the company should set its prices, and other issues.Much depended on the company’s view of the expected durability and depthof the scarcity situation. Three schools emerged: the gloom and doomschool, the return to normal school, and the new lifestyles school and eachfavored a different response. Companies recognized that they had to revisetheir product mix, customer mix, and marketing mix. The article presentedguideliness on the best adjustments to make. I added additional ideas aboutresponding to shortages and inflation in my article, ‘‘Strategic remarketing:The preferred response to shortages and inflation’’ (Kotler & Balachandran,1975).

In discussions with executives, they always stressed the importance ofincreasing market share as if their goal was to reach a 100% monopolyposition. Professor Paul Bloom and I critiqued this thinking in ‘‘Strategiesfor high market-share companies’’ (Bloom & Kotler, 1975). In reaching formore market share, a high market share company had to realize that thecost gets steeper as the company advances its market share because buyerswho have not yet joined the bandwagon have good reasons not to join.The company also has to worry about a too high market share invitinggovernment charges of unfair competition. Therefore, a company hasto decide whether it is worth X dollars to buy Y more market share; whenthe answer is no, they should put X dollars into a different and betteropportunity.

Market share is of particular interest to challenger companies who bydefinition are challenging the leader in an effort to gain more share. In‘‘Market challenger strategies’’ (Kotler, 1980), I discuss three types ofstrategy: direct attack, coming in through the backdoor, or a ‘‘guppy’’ strategyof buying up smaller firms. Then, I discuss nine attack strategies: discounts,


cheaper goods, prestige goods, product proliferation, product innovation,improved service, distribution innovation, marketing cost reduction, andintense advertising promotion.

In 1981, Professor Ravi Acrol and I moved to a higher level of thinkingabout attack and defense strategies using the framework of militarystrategies as developed by thinkers such as Carl von Clausewitz and LiddellHart. We started with a quote from Albert Emery: ‘‘Marketing is merely acivilized form of warfare in whichmost battles arewonwithwords, ideas, anddisciplined thinking.’’Our article, ‘‘Marketingwarfare in the 1980s’’ (Kotler&Singh, 1981) described the power and risks of five attack strategies: frontalattack, flanking attack, encirclement attack, bypass attack, and guerrillaattack. Then, we reviewed the power and risks of six defense strategies:position defense, mobile defense, preemptive defense, flank positioning,counteroffensive strategy, and hedgehog (strategic withdrawal) defense. Ourarticle received a lot of attention as well as a share of critics concerning theanalogy of marketing to warfare. Not long after, Al Ries and Jack Troutpublished a short book called Marketing Warfare (Ries & Trout, 1997), andConrad Levinson launched his popular set of books on guerrilla warfare(Levinson, 1984).

Volume 9: Broadening the Concept and Application of Marketing

Ever since publishing with Sid Levy our article ‘‘Broadening the concept ofmarketing, (see Kotler & Levy, 1969), I wrote 26 other articles applyingmarketing thinking to areas such as education, health, political campaign-ing, performing arts, museums, religion, poverty, and the public sector. Ihad a two-fold aim. One was to see whether marketing thinking can make acontribution to each of these sectors. The other was to see whethermarketing theory itself would be enriched by needing to stretch over to thesesectors and remain meaningful. I think that the broadening applicationspaid off in both respects. For a summary and assessment, see ‘‘The roleplayed by the broadening of marketing movement in the history ofmarketing thought’’ (Kotler, 2005).

Some of these sectors later led me to write whole books (museums,performing arts, health care, education, and religion), but I will notcomment on them here (see Kotler & Kotler, 2008; Kotler & Scheff, 1997;Wrenn, Kotler, & Shawchuck, 2009; Kotler, Shalowitz, & Stevens, 2008;Kotler & Fox, 1995).

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One strand was on political marketing that I wrote about in ‘‘Businessmarketing for political candidates’’ (Kotler & Kotler, 1981) and ‘‘Politicalmarketing – Generating effective candidates, campaigns, and causes’’(Kotler & Kotler, 1999) Another strand dealt with religion in articles suchas ‘‘Can (should) religion be marketed’’ (Kotler, Wrenn, Shawchuck, &Rath, 1994) and ‘‘What does it mean for pastors to adopt marketorientation?’’ (Wrenn, Shawchuck, Kotler, & Rath, 1995).

I enjoyed writing an article with Professor WilliamMindak on ‘‘Marketingand public relations: Should they be partners or rivals?’’ (Kotler & Mindak,1978). I had always felt that PR was treated as a stepchild in marketingplanning and that it deserved more attention. Some of the most successfulcommunication impacts came from creative PR.

CONTRIBUTIONS THROUGH BOOKS WRITTEN

When I want to learn about something in a broader and deeper way, I movefrom researching and writing an article to researching and writing a book. Ifno book exists that covers my ideas, I would decide to write the book.

I have published over 50 books, 11 of which I wrote by myself and theothers with expert coauthors. Nancy R. Lee and I wrote six books (seeKotler, Lee, & Roberto, 2002; Kotler & Lee, 2005, 2006; Kotler & Lee,2008, 2009; Cheng, Kotler, & Lee, 2011). Irving Rein and I wrote six books(see Kotler, Rein, & Haider, 1993; Kotler, Rein, Haider, & Asplund, 1999,2001; Kotler, Gertner, Rein, & Haider, 2006; Rein, Kotler, & Shields, 2006;Rein, Kotler, & Stoller, 2006). Hermawan Kartajaya and I wrote fivebooks (see Kotler & Kartajaya, 2000; Kotler, Kartajaya, Hua, & Liu, 2003;Kotler, Kartajaya, & Young, 2004; Kotler, Kartajaya, & Hua, 2007;Kotler, Kartajaya, & Setiawan, 2010). Waldemar Pfoertsch and I wrotetwo books (see Kotler & Pfoertsch, 2006, 2010). Somkid Jatusripitak and Iwrote two books (see Kotler, Fahey, & Jatusripitak, 1985; Kotler,Jatusripitak, & Maesincee, 1997), and Bruce Wrenn and I wrote twobooks (Kotler, Shawchuck, Wrenn, & Rath, 1992; Wrenn et al., 2009). Ihave collaborated with three other fine coauthors on textbooks: ProfessorGary Armstrong on Principles of Marketing and Marketing: an Introduc-tion, Professor Kevin Keller on Marketing Management, and ProfessorAlan Andreasen on Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations. I alsoowe a great deal to several professors abroad who adapted (not translated)


these textbooks to countries in Europe, Asia, and South America. Theyinclude the following:

Walter Georgio Scott
Catholic University, Milan, Italy Swee-Hoon Ang National University of Singapore Siew-Meng Leong National University of Singapore Chin Tiong Chan Singapore University of Management Friehelm W. Bliemel Universitat Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern,
Germany
Stewart Adam Deaken University, Melbourne, Australia Linden A. Brown University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Abraham Koshy Indian Institute of Technology, Ahmedabad,
India
Mithileshwar Jha Indian Institute of Technology, Bangalore,
India
Peggy Cunningham Queens University, Kingston, Canada Lu Taihong Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China John A. Saunders Aston Business School, Birmingham, England Veronica Wong Loughborough University Business School,
Loughborough, UK
Suzan Burton Macquarie University, Australia
The textbooks have educated millions of students in marketing around theworld and countless executives. At the same time, my books strive to keep upwith the changing times and feature the new developments. MarketingManagement will soon be published in the 14th edition; Principles ofMarketing in the 13th edition;Marketing: An Introduction in the 9th edition;and Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations in the 5th edition.

I hope that my theories on marketing are correct, or otherwise, I wouldhave miseducated three generations. I have had very few critics although Ialways welcome criticism, and I would be the first to revise my theories andframeworks if a better theory comes along. One of my critics has beenStephen Brown who wrote The Spectre of Kotlerism: A Literary Apprecia-tion (Brown, 2002) and who featured me as a hero or anti-hero in his firstnovel The Marketing Code (Brown, 2006). And a Russian professor namedAlexander Repiev wrote a critical article ‘‘Kotler and the Kotleroids’’(Repiev, 2009). I guess I am lucky to escape with only two vocal critics.

I am often asked which are my favorite books. I answer this question likeI answer the question about my children: they are all my favorites.

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I am happy to comment below on some of the books because of theirinteresting backgrounds or outcomes.

Marketing Management (Kotler & Keller, 2009)

This book has been adopted around the world in graduate schools ofbusiness. It has been translated or adapted in over two dozen languages.I published the first edition in 1967. I had examined previous marketingtextbooks and found them to be rich in information but highly descriptiveand prescriptive. They were not very decision-oriented or strategy-oriented.In writing the first edition of Marketing Management, I chose to base it onfour sources of thought: economic theory, behavioral theory, organizationtheory, and mathematical analysis. I was clearly departing from the normand I felt that the book had an equal chance of being a big success or a bigfailure. Fortunately it was the former. My publisher and I were delightedwith the high level of adoption. I was especially pleased when the FinancialTimes cited Marketing Management as one of the 50 most importantbusiness books of all times (Financial Times, December 9, 1996, p. 14).

I decided to prepare a new edition every three years to take account of thenew theories, concepts, tools, practices, and cases. I invited Professor KevinLane Keller of Dartmouth to be my coauthor of the 12th edition forward.Marketing is so dynamic that it needs a new accounting regularly. It hasbeen our good fortune to anticipate the changes usually before mycompetitors.

Marketing Management became the parent of two other textbooks that Iinitially wrote for undergraduate schools and community colleges. GaryArmstrong joined me later as coauthor, and we recently published the 13thedition of Principles of Marketing (Kotler, & Armstrong, 2008) and the 10thedition of Marketing – An Introduction (Kotler & Armstrong, 2009). Thesebooks in turn spawned foreign translations and adaptations and achievedmajor positions in the world market.

Marketing Decision Making: A Model Building Approach (Kotler, 1971)

This book was written by the economist in me attempting the impossible,namely, to guide marketing decision marketing by a system of equationsthat would lead to optimization. The book consisted of 700 pages ofmathematical model building. I used the method of successive approxima-tion in writing the book, in that I introduced one complexity at a time. I


showed how to model different competitive situations, different marketingtools, multiple products, marketing/production interactions, lagged anddecaying promotional effects, and conditions of risk and uncertainty.Marketing Decision Making was renamed Marketing Models (Kotler &Lilien, 1983) when Professor Gary Lilien joined me to update the book. Thebook went through three editions and enjoyed the major market share inthe courses teaching quantitative marketing. Subsequently, Gary Lillienwrote Marketing Engineering: Computer-Assisted Marketing Analysis andPlanning (Lilien & Rangaswamy, 2004), and it is a major contribution tothose who want to model marketing processes.

Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations(Kotler & Andreasen, 2008)

Most nonprofit organizations – social service organizations, colleges,museums, nonprofit hospitals, and others – know that their cause is good,but for a long time, they had an aversion to business-disciplined thinking.Peter Drucker did more than anyone to persuade churches, orchestras, andother nonprofit organizations that they were running businesses and wouldbenefit from business and management thinking. Slowly nonprofitorganizations accepted that they were doing marketing even if they didnot have a marketing department. A museum has to attract visitors, raiserevenue by selling books and other items, and attract donors. In 1975, Ipublished the first textbook on marketing for nonprofit organizations. I hadenjoyed consulting with YMCA, United Fund, school systems, congrega-tions, and other organizations on how to market their causes better. Iinvited Professor Alan Andreasen to join me as a coauthor in 1986 andshare the work to monitor the whole complex world of nonprofits. We havepublished seven editions that we hope will give the marketing skills to thosebusiness students and professionals who choose to work for nonprofitorganizations.

Social Marketing (Kotler & Roberto, 1989)

One of the books that I enjoy writing is Social Marketing whose aim is tohelp cause organizations influence positive behavioral change: say no tosmoking and drugs, avoid excess alcoholic consumption or driving whendrunk, exercise more regularly and eat healthier foods. I prepared the firstedition in 1979 with my former student Ned Roberto. We prepared a second

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edition in 2002 adding Nancy Lee as a coauthor. Nancy runs SocialMarketing Services and is a joy to work with. We are preparing the fourthedition of Social Marketing to bring in some new tools for using socialmedia more effectively and bringing in more measures to assess how wellany social marketing program or campaign is working.

Up and Out of Poverty(Kotler & Lee, 2009)

The aim of marketing is to raise the standard of living and the quality oflife, but we are saddened by the problem of poverty and the 4 billion out of6.7 billion people on the earth who go hungry or who live withoutadequate clothing, housing, education, or health. Nancy Lee and I studiedpoverty and wondered if social marketing concepts and tools could help liftpeople out of penurious living conditions. We examined the main forcesthat keep people poor – problems such as lacking bednets to protect theirchildren against mosquitoes and malaria, drinking contaminated watercausing diarrhea and death, and lacking birth control means to keep fromhaving more children than they could support. We described how socialmarketing compared to more common approaches such as exhortations,food relief programs, land redistribution. We believe that those workingwith poor people would find creative ways to apply STP and the fourPs of product, price, place, and promotion to alleviate the problems of thepoor.

Marketing Places: Attracting Investment, Industry, and Tourism to Cities,States, and Nations (Kotler et al., 1993)

I have always been intrigued with geography and the great variations in thefortunes of people living in different countries regarding resources, income,education, health, and other measures of social well-being. Newsweekmagazine recently published an article on ‘‘The world’s best countries,’’ andthe top 10 included all of the Scandinavian countries and the bottom 50included most of the poor African countries (Newsweek, 2010).

What can a place – city, state, nation, or region – do to improve itsconditions? How can it attract more tourists, factories, companies, skilledresidents, and resources? This question led Professors Irving Rein, DonaldHaider, and me to research how places market themselves or could usemarketing to improve a place’s condition and attractiveness. We published


our findings in the book Marketing Places in 1993. The book found use inmany communities and countries to take a systematic look at their place’sstrengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities. The original edition wasU.S. oriented, and we proceeded over the years to prepare editions withnew cases for Europe, Asia, and South America (Kotler, Rein, Haider, &Asplund, 1999; Kotler et al., 2001, 2006).

Standing Room Only, Museum Strategy and Marketing,and the Elusive Fan

I have a strong interest in cultural activities and institutions such asmuseums, performing arts organizations, and sports organizations. Theresults were three different books addressing classic and popular culture.

Joanne (Scheff) Bernstein was a student of mine who had a greatknowledge of performing arts organizations. We decided to research theproblems of performing arts organizations, and we published our findings inStanding Room Only: Strategies for Marketing the Performing Arts in 1997(Kotler & Scheff, 1997) We cited theories and many cases showing howtheaters, ballet companies, and orchestras could attract larger audiences,well-trained performers, and generous donors to support the cause ofculture.

My brother Neil Kotler worked at the Smithsonian Institution and wasvery knowledgeable about the world of museums. We decided to combineour talents to analyze how museums could work better if museumsanalyzed visitor development, revenue development, and donor develop-ment through marketing eyes. We published Museum Strategy andMarketing: Designing Missions, Building Audiences, Generating Revenueand Resources in 1998 and updated our findings in a second edition in 2008(Kotler & Kotler, 2008).

Irving Rein, Ben Shields, and I recognized the huge popular role playedby sports around the world. People have their favorite teams and athletesand devote hours and days of attention to their heros. But of all the teamsand athletes that play, only a few can be winners. How do all the losingteams and athletes hold on to their fans? Their fans are their customers andshould not be taken for granted. We wrote the book The Elusive Fan:Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace to show how teams andathletes should lay plans to build an active and loyal fan base whether theywin or lose (Rein et al., 2006).

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Marketing for the Public Sector

As government gets larger and we become more dependent on governmentagencies and laws and rules, it is important that the government works as anefficient service organization, and government employees see themselves as‘‘public servants.’’ Yet, all of us experience long lines and slow responsefrom many government agencies: standing lines in the license bureauor unemployment agency, a long waiting time for a new passport. NancyLee and I chose to research the marketing efficiency and effectiveness ofgovernment agencies, and we published our findings in Marketing in thePublic Sector: A Roadmap for Improved Performance (Kotler & Lee, 2006)hoping that it would improve government operations and the quality of theexperience that citizens take away.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Traditional companies exist to make money for their owners and feel that ifthey succeed at this, they have done their job. But business activities anddecisions have great impacts on the surrounding society. Some companies –such as cigarette companies, alcoholic companies, fast-food companies – canmake products that can potentially harm buyers. Producing products candeplete resources, create CO2 emissions, pollute water, and devastate forests.Fortunately, most companies today are more conscious that they create‘‘social costs’’ that they have not been covering in their prices. They recognizethe need and obligation to reduce or prevent damage to the environment andplanet. How should these companies show social responsibility? How muchmoney and resources should they spend to help improve the quality of life?How do they choose what causes to support? How do they know how muchgood their philanthropy is doing for the cause recipients and for themselves?Nancy Lee and I interviewed over 40 companies to ask these questions. Wepublished our findings in Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing the MostGood forYourCompanyandYourCause in 2005 (Kotler&Lee, 2005).Wewerehappy to report on thewonderful contributions ofmany of these companies tohelp improve the quality of life for many individuals.

Lateral Marketing

If marketing is to be effective, it depends on marketers who have a rightbrain as well as a left brain. Marketing calls for creativity not only in


developing communications but also in developing brand new products thatenrich our lives. It is fairly easy for Kellogg’s to make a tasty new cereal orCampbell’s to make a tasty new soup. But we welcome new products andservices that come from thinking ‘‘out of the box’’ such as an iPad, Twitter,home health care, and other breakthrough offerings. Professor FernandoTrias de Bes and I worked on this problem of achieving breakthrough ideas.We saw the issue as one of spending too much time thinking vertically (e.g.,thinking about another box of cereal) and not enough time thinkinghorizontally (doing something else with cereal instead of putting it in a box,such as a cereal-based health bar). We described the new method in LateralMarketing: A New Approach to Finding Product, Market, and MarketingMix Ideas published in 2003 (Kotler & Trias de Bes, 2003)

Chaotics

How should an economy respond to a great financial crisis, a move fromstability to chaos marked by an increase in turbulence? What can a companydo to reduce the number of surprises and shocks in an ever moreinterconnected and volatile global world? John Caslione and I consideredthis problem and published Chaotics: The Business of Managing andMarketing in The Age of Turbulence (Kotler & Caslione, 2009). Companiesneed to do a better job of managing an early warning system so that they areless surprised and more aware of what is happening around the world thatcould injure their position. Companies also need to imagine what mighthappen through the practice of periodic scenario planning exercises wherethey can imagine the worst and best things that might happen and how theywould respond. The process of engaging in scenario planning exercisesstretches managers’ thinking and alertness in a world of rapidly changingthreats and opportunities.

Marketing 3.0

How should companies operate to earn a profit in a slow growth economywhile meeting sustainability and corporate social responsibility? Webelieve that companies have no choice but to operate as good citizens asthey pursue their profit-making opportunities. Their success depends onearning the continued trust and preference of their consumers. Smartcompanies will increasingly strive to give their consumers more for less and

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to connect to their mind, heart, and human spirit. Word will travel fast as towho are the good guys and the bad guys in any industry. The growing talkon the social media will help the good guys become better and the bad guysto go under. Hermawan Kartajaya, Iwan Setiawan, and I wrote our views inMarketing 3.0: From Products to Customers to the Human Spirit (Kotleret al., 2010).

CONTRIBUTIONS BY MY STUDENTS

Having taught for over 45 years, I worked with many students in the MBAand Ph.D. programs at Kellogg. (We do not have an undergraduate businessprogram at Kellogg). The students are highly selected for entrance intoKellogg, and I profited from teaching and being taught by fine minds. Iremember a statement made by Donald Cook that most of the studentsenrolled in his classes were students, some were colleagues, and some werehis teachers. I felt the same way.

Many of my MBA students moved on to top companies and severalbecame CEOs. Several of my Ph.D. students went on to make majorcontributions to the discipline of marketing. Among them are Ravi Achrol,Reinhard Angelmar, Gary Armstrong, Richard Bagozzi, Paul Bloom, HarryDavis, Nik Dholaki, Ruby Dholaki, Luis V. Dominguez, Bernard Dubois,Dennis Gensch, Kent Grayson, Sonya Grier, Chris Janiszewski, GeorgeJohn, Jean Noel Kapferer, Kam-Hon Lee, Nirmalya Kumar, SuvitMaesincee, Ajay Manrai, Murily Mantrala, Lynn Phillips, Christian Pinson,Arvind Ragaswamy, Torger Reve, Deborah Roedder-John, Lisa Scheer,Charles Schewe, Randy Schultz, Avraham Shama, Venkatesh Shankar,Robert Spekman, Ronald Turner, Alice Tybout, Glen Urban, and RichardYalch. I learned a great deal from each of them.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO EXECUTIVES

I have enjoyed wonderful relations with executives both in my consultingpractice and in my seminars.

My consulting assignments included companies such as Abbott, Apple,Arthur Andersen, American Hospital Supply, AT&T, Bank of America,Brunswick, Ciba-Geigy, DuPont, Fireman’s Fund, GE, Hart Schaffner,Walter Heller, Honeywell, E.F. Hutton, Hyundai, IBM, Illy Cafe, Kia,Kimberly Clark, KLM, LG, Masonite, Merck, Motorola, Playboy, SAS


Airlines, Samsung, S.C. Johnson, and Sears. I met executives at thesecompanies and enjoyed working with them to help solve their problems.

At Sears, their vice president of Marketing and Strategy kept a newedition of Marketing Management in his desk, and whenever a staffer didnot know something, he would pull out my book from his drawer and tellhim or her to read the right section and return the book the next day.

I believe that I had a positive influence at IBM when CEO John Akersinvited me to evaluate the marketing plans of different units and to developa plan for IBM to become more customer driven in all of its departments.

In addition to consulting, I have given numerous seminars and trainingsaround theworldover a 40-year period.Myearlyworkwas inbringingmodernmarketing thinking into Western Europe starting with the United Kingdom,France, Germany, and Italy, and then moving up to Sweden, Norway,Denmark, and Finland. Later, I was invited to teach in Brazil, Argentina,Chile, and Mexico as marketing became a buzz word in these countries. Stilllater, Russia, Ukraine, and other Eastern European countries wanted to catchup, particularly Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Turkey and Egyptthen grew interested. Then the interest exploded in Southeast Asia with the‘‘Tiger’’ nations of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Followingthem,China and Indiawanted to learn everything they couldaboutmarketing.The latest part of theworld showing a rising interest inmarketing is theMiddleEast with Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Today, Ihave particularly close relations with marketers in Sweden, Poland, Ukraine,Italy, Turkey, India, China, and Indonesia. In the last case, Indonesia recentlyissued a postage stamp in my honor.

Leaving my intellectual journey aside, I want to end this article by sayingthat I am blessed with a wonderful wife Nancy and three children and ninegrandchildren. I travel around the world, speaking and learning new things,and meeting new and interesting people. Work has never seemed like workbecause of all the interesting conundrums and challenges associatedwith leading a scholarly life. Peter Drucker remaing my hero, for whomretirement was never of interest or an option.

REFERENCES

Achrol, R. S., & Kotler, P. (1999). Marketing in the network economy. Journal of Marketing,

63(4), 146–163(Special Issue).

Bloom, P. N., & Kotler, P. (1975). Strategies for high market-share companies. Harvard

Business Review, 53(6), 63–72.

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Brown, S. (2002). The spectre of kotlerism: A literary appreciation. European Management

Journal, 20(2), 129–146.

Brown, S. (2006). The marketing code. London: Cyan.

Cheng, H., Kotler, P., & Lee, N. R. (Eds). (2011). Social marketing for public health: Global

trends and success stories. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishing.

Financial Times, December 9, 1996, p. 14.

Jatusripitak, S., Fahey, L., & Kotler, P. (1985). Strategic global marketing: Lessons from the

Japanese. Columbia Journal of World Business, 20(1), 47–53.

Kotler, N., & Kotler, P. (2008). Museum strategy and marketing: Designing missions, building

audiences, generating revenue and resources. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass.

Kotler, P. (1963). The use of mathematical models in marketing. Journal of Marketing, 27(3),

31–41.

Kotler, P. (1964). Toward an explicit model for media selection. Journal of Advertising

Research, 4(1), 34–41 (Winner of the 1964 MacLaren Advertising Research Award and

the 1964 Media/Scope Merit Award).

Kotler, P. (1965a). The competitive marketing simulator – A new management tool. California

Management Review, 7(3), 49–60 (Winner of the McKinsey Award for the second best

article for the year 1964–65 and winner of the 1964 Merit Award of the Chicago Chapter

of the American Marketing Association.).

Kotler, P. (1965b). Competitive strategies for new product marketing over the life cycle.

Management Science, 12(4), 104–119.

Kotler, P. (1965c). Diagnosing the marketing takeover. Harvard Business Review, 43(6), 70–72.

Kotler, P. (1965d). Phasing out weak products. Harvard Business Review, 43(2), 107–118.

Kotler, P. (1966a). Evaluating competitive marketing strategies through computer simulation.

In: P. D. Bennett (Ed.), Marketing and economic growth (pp. 338–352). Chicago:

American Marketing Association.

Kotler, P. (1966b). Computerized media selection: Some notes on the state of the art. In: C. H.

Sandage (Special ed.) Occasional Papers in Advertising (Applications of the Sciences in

Marketing Management), 1(1), pp. 45–52. Babson Park, MA: American Academy of

Advertising, the Babson Institute (Winner of a Silver Award in the 1965 Thompson

Media Research Award Program).

Kotler, P. (1970). Corporate models: Better marketing plans. Harvard Business Review, 48(4),

135–149.

Kotler, P. (1971a). The elements of social action. American Behavioral Scientist, 14(5), 691–717.

Kotler, P. (1971b). What consumerism means to marketers. Harvard Business Review, 50(3),

48–57.

Kotler, P. (1971c). Marketing decision making: A model-building approach. New York: Holt,

Rinehart, Winston, Inc.

Kotler, P. (1972). A generic concept of marketing. Journal of Marketing, 36(2), 46–54 (Winner

of the 1972 Alpha Kappa Psi Foundation Award for the best article in the Journal of

Marketing.).

Kotler, P. (1973a). Atmospherics as a marketing tool. Journal of Retailing, 49(4), 48–64.

Kotler, P. (1973b). The major tasks of marketing management. Journal of Marketing, 37(4),

42–49.

Kotler, P. (1974). Marketing during periods of shortage. Journal of Marketing, 38(3), 20–29.

Kotler, P. (1977). From sales obsession to marketing effectiveness. Harvard Business Review,

55(6), 67–75.


Kotler, P. (1978). Harvesting strategies for weak products. Business Horizons, 21(4), 15–22.

Kotler, P. (1980). Market challenger strategies. In: T. S. Dudick & R. V. Gorski (Eds),

Handbook of business planning and budgeting for executives with profit responsibility

(pp. 66–70). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Kotler, P. (1985–1986). Meeting the new competition from Japan and the far East. Journal of

Global Marketing.

Kotler, P. (1986a). Global standardization – Courting danger. Journal of Consumer Marketing,

3(2), 13–15.

Kotler, P. (1986b). Megamarketing. Harvard Business Review, 64(2), 117–124.

Kotler, P. (1988). The potential contributions of marketing thinking to economic development.

In: E. Kumcu & A. F. Firat (Eds), Marketing and development: Toward broader

dimensions (Research in Marketing, Supplement 4) (pp. 1–10). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press

Inc.

Kotler, P. (1989). From mass marketing to mass customization. Planning Review, 17(5),

10–1347.

Kotler, P. (2005). The role played by the broadening of marketing movement in the history of

marketing thought. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 24(1), 114–116.

Kotler, P. (2006). Ethical lapses of marketers. In: J. N. Sheth & R. S. Sisodia (Eds), Does

marketing need reform (pp. 153–157). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Kotler, P., & Andreasen, A. (2008). Strategic marketing for nonprofit organizations. Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2008). Principles of marketing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice

Hall.

Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2009). Marketing – An introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Prentice Hall.

Kotler, P., & Balachandran, V. (1975). Strategic remarketing: The preferred response to

shortages and inflation. Sloan Management Review, 17(1), 1–17.

Kotler, P., & Caslione, J. A. (2009). Chaotics: The business of managing and marketing in the age

of turbulence. New York: AMACOM.

Kotler, P., & Dholakia, N. (1989). Ending global stagnation: Linking the fortunes of

the industrial and developing countries. Business in the Contemporary World,

86–97.

Kotler, P., & Fahey, L. (1982). The world’s champion marketers: The Japanese. Journal of

Business Strategy, 3(1), 3–13.

Kotler, P., & Fahey, L. (1985). Japanese strategic marketing: An overview. In: H. Thomas &

D. Gardner (Eds), Strategic marketing and management (pp. 441–451). New York: John

Wiley & Sons.

Kotler, P., Fahey, L., & Jatusripitak, S. (1985). The new competition: What theory Z didn’t tell

you about – marketing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Kotler, P., & Fox, K. F. A. (1995). Strategic marketing for educational institutions. Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Kotler, P., Gertner, D., Rein, I., & Haider, D. (2006).Marketing places, Latin America. Makton &

Paidos Rein.

Kotler, P., Gregory, W., & Rodgers, W. (1977). The marketing audit comes of age. Sloan

Management Review, 18(2), 25–43.

Kotler, P., Jatusripitak, S., & Maesincee, S. (1997). The marketing of nations: A strategic

approach to building national wealth. New York: The Free Press.

PHILIP KOTLER118

Kotler, P., & Kartajaya, H. (2000). Repositioning Asia: From bubble to sustainable economy.

Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., & Hua, H. D. (2007). Think ASEAN: Rethinking marketing toward

ASEAN community 2015. Singapore: McGraw-Hill.

Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., Hua, H. D., & Liu, S. (2003). Rethinking marketing: Sustainable

marketing enterprise in Asia. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., & Setiawan, I. (2010). Marketing 3.0: From products to customers to

the human spirit. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., & Young, S. D. (2004). Attracting investors: A marketing approach to

finding funds for your business. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2009). Marketing management: Analysis, planning, and control.

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. (Kevin Lane Keller joined as co-author in 2006.)

Kotler, P., & Kotler, N. (1981). Business marketing for political candidates. Campaigns and

Elections, 5, 24–33.

Kotler, P., & Kotler, N. (1999). Political marketing – Generating effective candidates,

campaigns, and causes. In: B. Neuman (Ed.),Handbook of political marketing (pp. 3–18).

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Kotler, P., Lee, N., & Roberto, E. (2002). Social marketing: Improving the quality of life. New

York: The Free Press.

Kotler, P., & Lee, N. R. (2005). Corporate social responsibility: Doing the most good for your

company and your cause. New York: Wiley.

Kotler, P., & Lee, N. R. (2006). Marketing in the public sector: A roadmap for improved

performance. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton School Publishing.

Kotler, P., & Lee, N. R. (2008). Social marketing: Influence behaviors for good. Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage.

Kotler, P., & Lee, N. R. (2009). Up and out of poverty: The social marketing solution.

Philadelphia, PA: Wharton School Publishing.

Kotler, P., & Levy, S. J. (1969). Broadening the concept of marketing. Journal of Marketing,

33(1), 10–15(Winner of the 1969 Alpha Kappa Psi Foundation Award for the best paper

in the Journal of Marketing.).

Kotler, P., & Levy, S. J. (1971). Demarketing, yes, demarketing. Harvard Business Review,

49(6), 74–80.

Kotler, P., & Levy, S. J. (1973). Buying is marketing too! Journal of Marketing, 37(1), 54–59.

Kotler, P., & Lilien, G. (1983). Marketing models (It was revised in 1992 and published by

Prentice-Hall with the addition of K. Sridhar Moorthy as third author.). New York:

Harper & Row.

Kotler, P., & Mantrala, M. K. (1985). Flawed products: Consumer responses and marketer

strategies. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 2(3), 27–36.

Kotler, P., & Mindak, W. (1978). Marketing and public relations: Should they be partners or

rivals? Journal of Marketing, 42(4), 13–20.

Kotler, P., & Pfoertsch, W. (2006). B2B brand management. Berlin: Springer.

Kotler, P., & Pfoertsch, W. (2010). Ingredient branding: Making the invisible visible. Berlin:

Springer.

Kotler, P., Rackham, N., & Krishnaswamy, S. (2006). Ending the war between sales and

marketing. Harvard Business Review, 84(7/8), 68–78.

Kotler, P., & Rath, G. A. (1984). Design: A powerful but neglected strategic tool. Journal of

Business Strategy, 5(2), 16–21.


Kotler, P., Rein, I., & Haider, D. (1993). Marketing places: Attracting investment, industry, and

tourism to cities, states, and nations. New York: The Free Press.

Kotler, P., Rein, I., Haider, D., & Asplund, C. (1999). Marketing places Europe. Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Financial Times.

Kotler, P., Rein, I., Haider, D., & Apslund, C. (2001). Marketing Asian places: Attracting

investment, industry, and tourism to cities, states, and nations. New York: Wiley.

Kotler, P., & Roberto, E. (1989). Social marketing: Strategies for changing public behavior. New

York: The Free Press.

Kotler, P., & Scheff, J. (1997). Standing room only: Strategies for marketing the performing arts.

Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Kotler, P., Shalowitz, J., & Stevens, R. (2008). Strategic marketing for health care organization:

Building a customer driven health care system. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass.

Kotler, P., Shawchuck, N., Wrenn, B., & Rath, G. (1992). Marketing for congregations:

Choosing to serve people more effectively. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.

Kotler, P., & Singh, R. (1981). Marketing warfare in the 1980s. Journal of Business Strategy,

1(3), 30–41.

Kotler, P., & Trias de Bes, F. (2003). Lateral marketing: A new approach to finding product,

market, and marketing mix ideas. New York: Wiley.

Kotler, P., & Westman, J. C. (2006). What CEOs need to know and do about marketing. Leader

to Leader Journal, 42, 20–28.

Kotler, P., Wrenn, B., Shawchuck, N., & Rath, G. (1994). Can (should) religion be marketed?

Quarterly Review, 117–134.

Kotler, P., & Zaltman, G. (1971). Social marketing: An approach to planned social change.

Journal of Marketing, 35(3), 3–12 (Winner of the 1971 Alpha Kappa Psi Foundation

Award for the best 1971 article in the Journal of Marketing.).

Kotler, P., & Zaltman, G. (1976). Targeting prospects for a new product. Journal of Advertising

Research, 16(1), 7–20.

Kumar, N., Sheer, L., & Kotler, P. (2000). From market driven to market driving. European

Management Journal, 18(2), 129–142.

Levinson, J. C. (1984). Guerilla marketing. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Levitt, T. (1983). Globalization of marketing. Harvard Business Review, 61(3), 92–102.

Lilien, G., & Rangaswamy, A. (2004). Marketing engineering: Computer-assisted marketing

analysis and planning. Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing.

Lindstrom, M. (2008). Buyology. New York: Doubleday.

Newsweek. (2010). The world’s best countries. Newsweek, August 15. Available at http://

www.newsweek.com/feature/2010/the-world-s-best-countries.html

Random House Webster’s Dictionary of American English. (1997). New York, NY: Random

House, p. 457.

Rein, I., Kotler, P., & Shields, B. (2006). The elusive fan: Reinventing sports in a crowded

marketplace. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Rein, I., Kotler, P., & Stoller, M. (2006). High visibility: The making and marketing of

professionals into celebrities. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Repiev, A. (2009). Kotler and the Kotleroids. Available at http://www.repiev.ru

Ries, A., & Trout, J. (1982). Positioning: The battle for your mind. New York: Warner Books.

Ries, A., & Trout, J. (1997). Marketing warfare. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Sawhney, M., & Kotler, P. (2000). Marketing in the age of information democracy. In:

D. Iacobucci (Ed.), Kellogg on marketing (pp. 386–408). New York: Wiley.

http://www.repiev.ru

http://www.repiev.ru

http://www.newsweek.com/feature/2010/the-world-s-best-countries.html

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Shaw, R., & Kotler, P. (2009). Rethinking the chain: Make marketing leaner, faster and better.

Marketing Management, 18(4), 18–23.

Smith, W. R. (1956). Product differentiation and market segmentation as alternative marketing

strategies. Journal of Marketing, 21(1), 3–8.

Wrenn, B., Kotler, P., & Shawchuck, N. (2009). Building strong congregations:

Attracting, serving, and developing your membership. Hagerstown, MD: Autumn House

Publishing.

Wrenn, B., Shawchuck, N., Kotler, P., & Rath, G. (1995). What does it mean for pastors

to adopt market orientation? Journal of Ministry Marketing and Management, 1(1),

5–23.

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