Philip Kotler is an American marketing author, consultant, and professor; currently the S.
C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management
at Northwestern University. He is the author of over 55 marketing books, including Principles
of Marketing, Kotler on Marketing: How to Create, Win, and Dominate Markets, and Marketing
3.0: From Products to Customers to the Human Spirit. Kotler describes strategic marketing
as serving as "the link between society's needs and its pattern of industrial response."
In 2013, WOBI, during World Marketing Forum gave the Kotler award to the best of marketing
in Mexico. This award went to Marcela Velasco, Marketing Director at Telcel.
Early life Both of Kotler's parents emigrated in 1917
from the Ukraine and settled in Chicago, where Kotler was born on May 27, 1931. He studied
at DePaul University for two years and was accepted without a bachelor's degree into
the Master's program at the University of Chicago and his PhD at Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, earning both degrees in economics. He studied under three Nobel Laureates in
Economic Science: Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, and Robert Solow. He did a year of postdoctoral
work in mathematics at Harvard University and in behavioral science at the University
of Chicago. Views about marketing
Kotler started teaching marketing in 1962 at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern
University. He believed marketing was an essential part of economics and saw demand as influenced
not only by price but also by advertising, sales promotions, sales forces, direct mail,
and various institutions operating as distribution channels.
Kotler holds that:
"the organization's marketing task is to determine the needs, wants and interests of target markets
and to achieve the desired results more effectively and efficiently than competitors, in a way
that preserves or enhances the consumer's or society's well-being."
He links the profit motive to the satisfaction of consumer wants and society's well-being.
In order to market effectively, Kotler believes the marketing purpose of elevating consumer
well-being has to be put at the heart of company strategy and be practiced by all managers.
In 2003, the Financial Times cited Kotler's three major contributions to marketing and
to management:
First, he has done more than any other writer or scholar to promote the importance of marketing,
transforming it from a peripheral activity, bolted on to the more "important" work of
production. Second, he continued a trend started by Peter Drucker, shifting emphasis away from
price and distribution to a greater focus on meeting customers' needs and on the benefits
received from a product or service. Third, he has broadened the concept of marketing
from mere selling to a more general process of communication and exchange, and has shown
how marketing can be extended and applied to charities, political parties and many other
non-commercial situations.
Kotler argued for broadening the field of marketing to cover not only commercial operations
but also the operations of non-profit organizations and government agencies. He held that marketing
can be applied not only to products, services, and experiences, but also to causes, ideas,
persons, and places. Thus a museum needs the marketing skills of Product, Price, Place,
and Promotion if it is to be successful in attracting visitors donors, staff members,
and public support. Kotler and Gerald Zaltman created the field of social marketing, which
applies marketing theory to influence behavior change that would benefit consumers, their
peers, and society as a whole. Kotler and Sidney Levy developed the idea of demarketing,
which organizations must employ to reduce overall or selective demand when demand is
too high. Thus, when water is in short supply, the government needs to persuade various water
consumers to reduce water usage so that enough water will be available for essential uses.
Writings and activities In 1967, Kotler published Marketing Management:
Analysis, Planning, and Control, now in its 14th edition, and the world's most widely
adopted textbook in graduate schools of business. Whereas previous marketing textbooks were
highly descriptive, this text was the first to draw on economic science, organizational
theory, psychology of behavior and choice, and analytics. It described theory and practice,
and drew on findings from empirical studies and cases. On December 9, 1996, the Financial
Times cited Marketing Management as one of the 50 greatest business books of all time.
Kotler is the author and co-author of over 150 published articles and 55 books, such
as the textbook Principles of Marketing and Marketing: An Introduction. Kotler has also
written 50 other books on such subjects as corporate social responsibility, education,
environment, government marketing, healthcare, hospitality, innovation, museums, performing
arts, place marketing, poverty alleviation, professional services, religious institutions,
and tourism. His published articles are presented, analyzed,
and commented on in the nine-volume Legends in Marketing Series: Philip Kotler, edited
by Professor Jagdish Sheth. Honorable distinctions
In 1975, Kotler was the first person to receive the "Leader in Marketing Thought" award voted
on by the academic members of the American Marketing Association.
The Financial Times on November 18, 2005 surveyed 1,000 executives in 25 countries about the
Most Influential Business Writers/Management Gurus, and Kotler ranked fourth after Peter
Drucker, Bill Gates, and Jack Welch. Kotler's contributions are described in at least one
chapter found in every book written about the "gurus" of business and management.
On February 16, 2013, he was the first recipient of the William L. Wilkie "Marketing for a
Better World" award from the American Marketing Association to "honor marketers who have significantly
contributed to the understanding and appreciation for marketing's potential to improve the world."
Also, in 2013 he was the first recipient of the Sheth Foundation Medal for Exceptional
Contribution to Marketing Scholarship and Practice.
Kotler is also the founder of the World Marketing Summit, whose annual conferences are dedicated
to finding ways to improve human conditions and the quality of life. He also co-established
the world's first Museum of Marketing in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. and is the first marketer
to appear anywhere on a postage stamp, in this case issued by Indonesia in 2003.
Kotler has received 14 honorary degrees from around the world,
Selected publications "Guru" books that contain a complete chapter
on Professor Kotler's contributions include such titles as:
Crainer, Stuart. The Ultimate Book of Business Gurus: 110 Thinkers Who Really Made a Difference.
New York: AMACOM. Kennedy, Carol. Guide to the Management Gurus:
Shortcuts to the Ideas of Leading Management Thinkers. London: Century Business.
Turner, Marcia Layton. How to Think Like the World's Greatest Marketing Minds. New York:
McGraw-Hill. Brown, Tom; Crainer, Stuart; Dearlove, Des
& Rodrigues, Jorge N.. Business Minds. London: Financial Times/Prentice-Hall.
References
More references: http:www.kellogg.northwestern.edudirectory/kotler_philip.aspx#research Further reading
Financial Times, December 9, 1996. External links
PKotler.org