Philip Kotler's 5 marketing & B-school mantras for India

Philip Kotler's 5 marketing & B-school mantras for India

> Offer good products to core consumers.

> The number of innovations one has seen in this country is great. One of these is sachet packaging. At one time, they (Indian marketers) were also selling one cigarette at a time.

> India has great ideas on how to make products affordable. If they (companies here) can figure out how to bring costs down, they can sell a lot more TVs and phones.


Mistakes by Indian marketers

> The basic mistake some make is not knowing how to engage with customers' beliefs, values, needs and aspirations.

> Sometimes marketers fail to segment effectively. They've got to decide what type of consumers they are looking for.

> If marketers are in a service industry, they need to stay focused on employees, sales force - these people are the ones who deliver to consumers.

> They need to be aware of new channels of communication - there's always this danger of complacency. They are not asking enough - can our product message be disrupted by changing technology?


What marketers can do to make a global impact

> Right now there aren't Indian brands that are truly global. You can say Tata, but the average American doesn't know a Tata Nano (but again, Americans are insular). I believe Asia will spawn a lot of brands that will become global.

> Isn't it interesting that some of the smallest countries in the world have the most brands, like Switzerland. Yet they are able to create the brands differently.

> Many people say marketers are just promoters. But they are the ones who can segment, target, position brands.

> I want marketers to be proactive, not just reactive. An interesting example is that of the old GM - they made a car but didn't know who it was for. That's not good. Every good brand should start with a concept. Once that happens, the advertiser already knows what to say... he has to only figure out how to say it. Globally, Unilever and Nestle really know what to do or what to say.


What Indian B-schools are not teaching

> The IIM and IIT curriculums are pretty much state of art.

> But I hope they would get into more entrepreneurial and innovative classes, instead of teaching only managerial business.