B-schools students across India, barring few hate one name in their first term. No prizes for guessing Phillip Kotler. An economist right from birth, he haunts the marketing minds of the nation with his “Ctrl+C – Ctrl+V” therapy. “Ctrl+C – Ctrl+V”, a patented technology by the engineers of the SWITCH companies (Satyam, Wipro, Infosys, TCS, CTS & HCL), has risen to the issue and has filed an IPR breach suit against His Excellency Mr. Kotler in Bombay High Court. Last week when Aal-Baal news interviewed an anonymous student from a premier B-school in Mumbai, he said that “I didn’t find any difference between the chapters ‘Creating Brand Equity’ and ‘Setting Product Strategy’. All His Excellency has done is, use the “Ctrl+C – Ctrl+V”. He has also gone on to use “Ctrl+H” for replacing the word “Brand” with “Product”.”
With more analyses coming in from all over India, an independent report that is on a viral on Facebook states that, His Excellency didn’t get shortlisted in one of the leading FMCG company G&P for a Marketing profile. A probe into the issue revealed that they rejected him because he carried an Economics profile and had applied to a marketing role. On conditions of anonymity, another management student from Mumbai exposed that “All the chapters of his book states only one thing – Customer. When he preaches the concept that “Customer is the king”, which is widely known and is nothing but common sense, why doesn’t he deliver a right product to his own customers, that is us? He writes a book that is read by everyone, but none understand the content.”
A pass-out from the same School of Management said that he didn’t know how he coped up with the book which haunted him in his dreams. “I used to see His Excellency in my dreams and always got confused if I was the customer or the marketer. Give me one chapter; I can roll out 25 chapters from that.” With such high-yielding challenges, will His Excellency Phillip Kotler understand the strategic repositioning that his book needs to undergo? Will he advertise or promote the book after incorporating the cutting edge strategic changes and improve the brand name, ensuring that the brand equity doesn’t falter? Only time will tell, until then enjoy Marketing – one of the best subjects of Management.
