The Greatest Marketer Ever?

Business has only two functions Marketing and Innovation, said Peter F. Drucker. I discussed innovation in my first post. The time has come to talk about the other function of business, Marketing. The question is: Who is the greatest marketer ever? (As if that wasn’t obvious from the heading!)

According to Sean Burke, CMO GE Healthcare IT, there are four characteristics of an effective marketer.

a.       Innovator of products, wants and value.

b.      Instigator or agent of change.

c.       Integrator of cross-functional members.

d.      Implementer

The nominees for this prestigious award are:

a.       The Church: What an idea! The name of the idea: Santa Claus. He sells the spirit of Christmas. No other religion in the world has an icon so loved by children. That is innovation at its best.

Church has used all types of marketing – ambush marketing, viral marketing & even mass market marketing. Surprisingly they seem to succeed in spite of the fact that their product (Christianity religion) is in no way greater than other religions in the world. The reason they are able to do so is because of their implementation skills.

b.      Hugh Hefner: The founder of Playboy Enterprises has all the qualities of a top-class marketer. Hugh Hefner, my personal favourite, launched one of its kind Playboy magazines in 1953.The magazine captures the imagination (pun not intended, clearly!) of the young and the old, erasing the hype of generation gap. As an agent of change, he introduced the world to Playboy Radio, Playboy TV and Playboy Wireless for mobiles. Playboy has handled the paradigm shift from Paper-to-Pixel pretty well. It sells twice the number of magazines as compared to its closest competitor.

c.       M.K. Gandhi: Father of the nation of India, M. K. Gandhi, was born on October 2^nd, 1869. Imagine the scene in 1915, on his return to India. The industry of Indian freedom was dominated by the product of violence. As any smart marketer would have done, he introduced something new to this industry. His product was non-violence.

      

      He used the Non-Cooperation movement, Salt March, Quit India Movement and many more, in order to establish the strength of his product. It also helped him implement his marketing ideas. And it also shows his leadership skills and the role that an implementer plays in any marketing effort. He was able to garner support of people of all ages, a rare commodity nowadays.

d.      Osama Bin Laden: The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks also features on our list because of his creativity and execution. He introduced the “art” of crashing planes into buildings, in a market (terrorism) dominated by bomb blasts and suicide bombers.

Thinking is different from doing. The difference between good and great marketers is the act. Execution. And that is where Bin Laden is, sorry was, so good. His execution of the 9/11 attack was what got him on our list.

He also used his popularity to great advantage, by encouraging youngsters to join him on his quest and instilling fear in the minds of others.

And the winner is............. M. K. Gandhi. He seems to be the only candidate on our list, who meets all the four requirements of a great marketer.