“The Executive Guide to Marketing Effectiveness” – Philip Kotler

May 14, 2016

NOTE: We asked Professor Philip Kotler about how executives should evaluate marketing effectiveness. We discovered this assessment, developed by Kotler in the late 1970s. Astonishingly, the assessment works today, despite the onset of Big Data, social media, and digital marketing. (Sign up for his newsletter.)

The marketing mindset is not easy to introduce into an organization. It tends to be misunderstood or, once understood, easily forgotten in the wake of success. The corporation, and particularly the CMO, has the responsibility of assessing marketing effectiveness in each division.

This assessment can be a useful tool. Using it, executives can work constructively with divisions that have a low score, apprising them of the factors that make up marketing effectiveness. This plan may include attending marketing seminars, reading the marketing literature, hiring inside experts or outside consultants, carrying out fresh research, and improving strategy and planning. In some divisions, top management may need to intervene. They may need to hire a marketing-trained person to work for the sales vice president, a marketing director to work for the general manager, or a marketing vice president to head all sales and marketing activity. The results of trying to improve the division’s marketing effectiveness can be evaluated each year.

(Check one answer for each question.)