Kotler's Interview with eTalks: Philip Kotler : Marketing for Better World

Niaz: You are an economist trained at the University of Chicago (M.A.) and MIT (Ph.D.). Three of your Professors were Nobel Prize Economists – Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, and Robert Solow. But you have been cited as the world’s foremost expert on the Strategic Practice of Marketing. Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself and why marketing became such a big factor in your life?

Philip Kotler:  Throughout my study of economic theory, I was bothered by the absence of discussions of distribution institutions (wholesalers, retailers, agents, jobbers, etc.) and promotional tools (advertising, sales promotion, and salesforce).  It seemed to me that the level of market demand and individual company demand are heavily influenced by these institutions and activities as well as price (which absorbed the most attention of economists).  When I was offered a position to teach either economics or marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, I chose to teach marketing so that I could show that it was a branch of economic science.

I moved into the question of what influences the level, composition and timing of customer demand and what are the determinants of individual demand.  Classic economics assumes a world of rational buyers and rational producers.  I always felt that this grossly oversimplified the understanding of customer behavior and producer behavior.  The recent growth of interest in behavioral economics in contrast to classical economics is bringing many missing institutions and activities into economic focus.