1. MARKETING IS DOING GOOD & BEING GOOD
A leading B-School at Cochin invited me to deliver a guest lecture to their
final year students. The Dean of the school had specific requirements
about the speaker. They were - A practising Marketing Manager
preferably with MBA who can touch areas like International Marketing,
Consumer Marketing, Industrial Marketing, Logistics and , working
knowledge of Mercantile Law, Exports & Imports, Central Excise and
Customs and VAT. The topic was decided on the above areas and day,
date and time were fixed. They offered their car for pickup and drop for
which I thanked and politely refused and informed them that I will make
my own arrangements. Like every invited speaker worth of his salt, I too
had my power-point presentation file loaded in my laptop.
The customary welcome speech based on my bio data and then I took
over the show and the session started. I was at ease with my little
knowledge on all the above areas to answer all questions that emanated
from all corners including one from an young faculty. At the end of the
session, one student posed a question to define marketing in my own
words. I confidently answered that Marketing is an all pervasive word
and in my words, marketing is doing good and being good. When I
quickly glanced at the faces of audiences, I realised that the house was
puzzled and it seemed to me that the house could not decipher and digest
this concept. Though I have read one or two articles on CSR & the said
topic and having said this concept to these audiences which is quite new
and yet to be proved or practised, I decided that I should deliberate on
this for some more time with my own experiences, experiments and
spontaneous thoughts as there were neither reactions nor responses
from any one.
After a little pause, I continued that when you are a child, the
expectations from your parents, grand-parents, relatives and so on are
that you should listen, abide by their advices, guidelines, conventions,
instructions and many more. In other words, you are expected to do
good things and refrain yourself from doing unwanted or undesired
things or activities. You are expected to be honest, sincere with good
integrity and uphold moral values and not expected to be a liar, a cheat,
a thief – the result is you are certified as a good child. You continue to be
a good personality and follow a good lifestyle, you are certified as a good
reliable trustworthy boy or girl. If you continue the same principles at
school, colleges and even at your work place, you are further certified as
a good man or woman and this process always is evaluated by others and
not by self. In this process, you build a good brand of yourself - create
friends and you will and can retain those friends throughout your
lifetime. This is what doing good and being good.

2. Now you link this to Marketing. One of the objective of Marketing as per
Management guru Peter F.Drucker is to create customer and retain them.
I cited an example of clothier John Wanamaker – named as father of
modern advertising who built his business on values and whose retail
business grew into one of the world’s first department stores, instilled in
his employees the attitude of the utmost honesty. Once he reduced the
price of neckties to 25 cents, one customer asked him are they good? and
this prompted him to write the advertisement as “they are not good as
they look but they are good enough at 25 cents and the neckties were
sold like hot cakes.
I had to still continue as the audiences were keenly waiting for my further
stuff to substantiate this concept which is quite new and said easier than
done. Look young managers - Today’s consumers are tired of
advertisement, differentiation and it is hard to find differences among
brands since they appear same. They are bored with promises and
therefore you should create and advertisement which must be factual and
promises made in them should be honoured. Consumers have started to
blatantly talk, write, speak and express themselves on the web about
brands that add value to their life and this goes beyond a sale. After all a
brand is to be seen as something that can have tremendous impact on
the earnings of a company. The way a brand is nurtured and cared shall
also apply to a company. Therefore nothing wrong if you as a marketing
manager create a product or brand which actually help consumers to
improve the world and add value to life, society, and all stakeholders –
This is what I meant doing good and being good.
This is closely linked and related to corporate social responsibility which
you all must have heard and is much talked about and a hot topic today.
CSR delivers various benefits like customer satisfaction and loyalty,
customer – firm identification, favourable firm image when especially a
firm does CSR like philanthropy and green marketing.
At the end of the session, I was elited and delighted to have touched a
topic which is absolutely new and I was pretty sure and could realise that
these students were never been exposed to such concepts. I even told
them on that day that I am writing an article on this topic which has
become true only now.
A little before the customary vote of thanks and memento ceremony, I
could observe from the blinking eyes of both the faculty and the crown
princess that all of them must be both convinced and confused.
A.VEERAMANI, SR. MANAGER - MARKETING, RARE EARTHS DIVISION.