I am not yet a big fan of Podcasts, but when I came across an email from Marketing Week talking about a podcast with Philip Kotler, I just had to listen.

The name of Philip Kotler, should be familiar to most marketers. I am sure many of the practitioners of this profession would have come across his books at some stage of their careers, either as a student or a professional seeking to know more about the field.

This podcast was probably the first time I had heard him ‘speak’, so to say. And it was fascinating, to say the least. In just 30 minutes, he touched upon many important aspects of business and marketing. Just a few highlights for me:

• Philip Kotler actually studied to be an economist (under the legendary Milton Friedman, no less). He only switched over to Marketing as he felt the models being used then by economists did not touch upon the emotional aspects of consumer decision making.
• He was uncomfortable with the prevailing notion at the time that the purpose of a firm is to maximise value for its shareholders. Instead, he advocates that we should be thinking about ‘advancing the common good’, raising the standard of living and quality of life of people.
• He reveals why he did not want to be CMO – I could certainly relate to his views on this!
• It was also interesting to hear him say that Firms are slow in moving to the Digital World. I would assume that he is talking about large corporations that have been around since before the Digital explosion, as, in my humble opinion, there are many digital native organisations that are moving very rapidly in this field and setting the bar for others.
• But in one aspect, I agree with him wholeheartedly, which is to day with the quality of available data.

These are just a few of the points discussed by Kotler in this podcast. Please go ahead and listen to the whole podcast – it will be 30 minutes well spent!