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I met Philip Kotler this week. We had breakfast while he was in London for a couple of days. A remarkable man. Dr Kotler did not appear jaded by a tour schedule that would make Glastonbury headliner Bruce Springsteen weep.
In between teaching at the Kellogg School of Management in Illinois and acting as consultant to some of the world’s biggest brands, Dr Kotler is travelling the globe to promote Chaotics, a new book co-written with his colleague John Caslione about how to manage our way through both the turbulent present and what will be a “new world order”. The tour has seen Dr Kotler appear in Costa Rica, Trinidad, Colombia, Thailand and South Korea in the past two months alone. And he’s due to travel to 12 other countries around the world before November.
Despite this, the energy, passion and intellect this 78-year-old harbours is undimmed. He spoke with justified authority, but also listened intently as we compared notes of good and bad marketing on either side of the Atlantic. He was lucid on how globalisation and technology have impacted on marketing and expressed concern for the many big brands that he feels “just aren’t ready” for the shock of the post-recession world. He still preaches the Four P’s to clients and students, but says: “there is now about a dozen C’s to add – that’s how much marketing has changed”.
Kotler once wrote: “Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make, marketing is the art of creating genuine customer value.”
He was excited about the recent changes at Marketing Week magazine and was keen to know what else we’re doing to create “genuine customer value”.
Our website, MarketingWeek.co.uk, saw a 50% increase in traffic after it relaunched two weeks ago as marketers found ever more ways to engage with the Marketing Week brand. We already have more than 13,000 marketers registered to attend Marketing Week Live, our new integrated marketing event at Olympia next week. Accessing the four exhibitions and the industry speakers and presentations on the Marketing Week Live stage will be free. But those of you considering just turning up on the day would be better off registering (www.marketingweeklive.co.uk) to get discounts on our specialist seminars.
There are plenty more new products in planning here at Marketing Week so keep your eye on the website and magazine – especially if you’re interested in reading regular contributions from Dr Kotler.
