MARKETING SPECIAL...TALK WITH KOTLER... MASTER’S CLASS

 TALK WITH KOTLER MASTER’S CLASS 

Is the word ‘consumer’ redundant? Is Big Data a good investment? Uber guru Philip Kotler weighs in on the marketing dilemmas of three Indian CEOs 

Ask any undergrad or a marketing professional or a chief executive. They will all agree that Dr Philip Kotler is the 'Wren and Martin' of Marketing. Period. Among the octogenarian's many accomplishments is the 14th edition of the most authoritative textbook on marketing, simply named Marketing Management. Loved by students and revered by the best brains in business, Kotler's legacy is unparalleled. A product of the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was taught economics by three Nobel laureates-Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow. With a year's postdoctoral work in mathematics from Harvard University and behavioral science from University of Chicago, Kotler brings to the table a formidable combo of the arts and sciences and looks at economic theory ground up. Kotler, who recently co-authored Market Your Way To Growth: 8 Ways To Win, is also credited with a slew of new concepts in marketing, including social marketing, atmospherics, demarketing, megamarketing, turbomarketing and synchromarketing. The SC Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg B-School will be visiting India in March. CD requested three CEOs, Bharti Airtel's outgoing chief executive Sanjay Kapoor, McDonald's managing director (North and East), Vikram Bakshi, and Havells Jt. managing director, Anil Rai Gupta, to put forward some questions to Professor Kotler. Here are his responses:
SANJAY KAPOOR: With the irreversible changes brought in by the social media landscape, is the word "consumer" redundant? Is "prosumer" an appropriate replacement? How will this change marketing in the next 10 years?
PHILIP KOTLER: The word "consumer" presents us with a view of the customer as a passive person sitting and watching a commercial, or going into a store just to browse. We know that consumers today have access to a great deal of information; they can be "smart buyers." We know that many consumers are able to make some things they want rather than buy them. The word "prosumer" was intended to be an abbreviation of "productive consumer," consumers who make some things to meet their own needs. Many women do "prosuming" work when they design and knit their own sweaters or bake their own angel food cake from scratch rather than buying it from a bakery. Some entrepreneurs may want to approach prosumers as a market opportunity through supplying them with materials and instructions that facilitate self-making. I wish there was another word besides consumers and prosumers to reflect more active "consumers."

SANJAY KAPOOR: With the lines blurring between entities in the digital ecosystem (role of operator vs. over-the-top (OTT) players vs. content providers etc) the concept of "frenemies" is here to stay. Do you see a change in the way companies will engage with customers in the future?
PHILIP KOTLER: It's a technical question and most readers won't understand "OTT," "frenemies," etc. Here is an answer to your
faster service or a slightly larger portion. This carries the risk of losing the most price sensitive customers.
    Instead of mentioning further steps, I have to say that each situation of rising input costs but high price sensitivity must be deeply analyzed and a judgment made by the proprietors who have experience and who have faced this common situation in the past.

VIKRAM BAKSHI: India is a country with great diversity. Food habits, types and cuisines change with every region. Indian consumer is opening up to world cuisine but wants the taste to be as per their palate, even in International food. It is a challenge creating a product that has a universal appeal across the country. How should the product strategy balance the need for local taste in a foreign concept like burgers? Should we adapt or create a new product range?
PHILIP KOTLER: I start with the premise that all good marketing is local. In the old days, people cooked at home the food
they wanted or went to the nearest restaurant that excelled in meeting their tastes and budget. The rise of major food chains changed this. A major food chain succeeds by developing a standard menu that satisfies a large mass of people. At the beginning, it was enough to sell one hamburger type, or maybe two types. Then chicken and fish sandwiches were added, and later good salads. German consumers want beer and Japanese consumers want saki. All of these adaptations are warranted. One competitor advertised "Have it Your Way" which is a smart slogan if it can be done profitably. My guess is that each branch store within the chain group must be given enough freedom to modify its dishes or add local dishes to meet the appetites of the target local population.

ANIL RAI GUPTA: What shifts in marketing mix have you seen the successful MNCs companies do when they target the emerging markets?
 PHILIP KOTLER: Large MNCs from the West would be smart to localize their staff, offerings and messages. McDonalds had varied its sandwiches and appeals in different countries down to their local branches. It is not a case of offering one standard offering to emerging markets and another to developed markets. There is too much diversity not only between emerging countries but within each emerging country down to the local neighborhood. The thing that I have noticed is the emergence of global multinationals from emerging countries and they probably will be in a better position to serve consumers in emerging countries than the Western multinationals. For example, Jolly-B, a Philippine hamburger company is giving strong competition to McDonalds in that country.
Moinak Mitra