Philip Kotler’s original Ten Deadly Marketing Sins: Signs and Signals (2004) warned companies of systemic weaknesses in their marketing approach. Two decades later, these sins are even more dangerous in an age of permacrisis — climate breakdown, inequality, political instability, and digital disruption. To remain relevant, companies must shift from avoiding failure to actively practicing regenerative marketing: marketing that advances the Comnon Good, that is – marketing that restores trust, equity, and ecosystems while creating value for customers, communities, and the Planet.

Here’s a list of the original 10 deadly sins of marketing:

1. Your Company Is Not Sufficiently Market Focused and Customer-Driven
2. Your Company Does Not Fully Understand Its Target Customers
3. Your Company Needs to Better Define and Monitor Its Competitors
4. Your Company Has Not Properly Managed Its Relationships with Its Stakeholders
5. Your Company Is Not Good at Finding New Opportunities
6. Your Company’s Marketing Planning Process Is Deficient
7. Your Company’s Product and Service Policies Need Tightening
8. Your Company’s Brand-Building and Communication Skills Are Weak
9. Your Company Is Not Well Organized to Carry On Effective and Efficient Marketing
10. Your Company Has Not Made Maximum Use of Technology

The Ten Deadly Marketing Sins — Reimagined for Regeneration

What would the 10 sins look like if we view them through the lens of regeneration? As a strategic imperative?

Here’s what that shift might look like:

1. Not Sufficiently Market Focused and Customer-Driven → Not Life-Centered

Original Sin: Companies think product-first, not customer-first.
Regenerative Upgrade: Go beyond being “customer-driven” to being life-driven. Ask: How does our marketing support the well-being of people and the planet? Market orientation expands to life orientation.

2. Not Fully Understanding Target Customers → Not Understanding Communities

Original Sin: Weak insight into customer needs and behaviors.
Regenerative Upgrade: Customers are part of communities. Companies must engage deeply with context, culture, and lived realities, not just demographics. Marketing should strengthen communities, not just exploit segments.

3. Poor Definition and Monitoring of Competitors → Ignoring Systemic Disruptors

Original Sin: Narrow competitor focus blindsides firms.
Regenerative Upgrade: Competitors are only part of the ecosystem. Companies must track systemic disruptors — climate, technology shifts, social movements — that reshape markets. True vigilance means scanning all 5 Worlds.

4. Weak Management of Stakeholder Relationships → Ignoring the Common Good

Original Sin: Poor stakeholder engagement.
Regenerative Upgrade: Marketing must balance the needs of all stakeholders: employees, customers, suppliers, communities, nature, and future generations. Stakeholder value is incomplete without Common Good stewardship.

5. Weakness in Finding New Opportunities → Neglecting Regenerative Innovation

Original Sin: Companies miss new trends and markets.
Regenerative Upgrade: The richest opportunities today lie in regenerative solutions: circular economies, renewable energy, ethical supply chains, inclusive products. Opportunity = aligning profit with restoration.

6. Deficient Marketing Planning Process → Short-Termism Over Long-Term Stewardship

Original Sin: Marketing planning reduced to budgets and campaigns.
Regenerative Upgrade: Planning must include long-term stewardship. Strategies should be tested against intergenerational responsibility: Will this decision harm or regenerate tomorrow’s world?

7. Flawed Product and Service Policies → Producing Waste Instead of Value

Original Sin: Bloated, undifferentiated portfolios.
Regenerative Upgrade: Products must be designed for durability, repairability, circularity, and genuine utility. Marketing should champion products that add real value to society, not disposable consumption.

8. Weak Brand-Building and Communication Skills → Lack of Purpose and Authenticity

Original Sin: Weak branding reduces firms to commodities.
Regenerative Upgrade: Brands must stand for a purpose rooted in the Common Good. Regenerative branding is authentic, transparent, and action-backed — not greenwashing or empty activism.

9. Poor Organization for Marketing Execution → Siloed vs. Regenerative Teams

Original Sin: Marketing execution is fragmented.
Regenerative Upgrade: Regenerative marketing requires cross-functional collaboration — marketing, design, R&D, and sustainability working together. Organizations should be designed as living systems, not silos. Furthermore, all organizations must learn to collaborate in ways they have not been taught in B-school. This is an imperative of the Common Good.

10. Underutilization of Technology → Tech Without Ethics

Original Sin: Failure to leverage technology.
Regenerative Upgrade: Today’s danger is the opposite — tech without responsibility. AI, data, and digital platforms must be used ethically, enhancing human dignity and ecological health rather than exploiting them.

The Transformation to Regenerative Marketing

Philip Kotler’s 10 deadly sins of  marketing remain a vital diagnostic. But in the regenerative age, they must be reimagined: not just as marketing failures but as ethical failures that risk society’s future. The regenerative marketer asks: Does my work restore or deplete? Does it strengthen the 5 Worlds of the Common Good — Individual, Community, Work, Nation, Planet?

Only by replacing these sins with regenerative values can marketing evolve into a discipline worthy of its highest purpose: to heal, restore, and regenerate life – in service of the Common Good.

To recap:

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Christian Sarkar is the editor of this site, and is a co-founder of the Regenerative Marketing Institute. Philip Kotler is the father of modern marketing. Together, they’ve authored Wicked Problems: What can we do in this Time of Collapse,  Regeneration: The Future of Community in a Permacrisis World, and Brand Activism: From Purpose to Action.