The management guru and someone whose Marketing Management books are like a bible on Marketing has expressed his views on the internet in a couple of interviews. I am quoting three answers that i found particularly interesting.

Allwin of PagalGuy.com: How do think the Internet affects new age marketing and how will old marketers who don’t understand the concept of Internet, blogs, and various other techniques cope in the future?

Dr Kotler: We never thought that the Internet would become an advertising medium and in fact an early statement by the head of P&G said that CEOs would change and shift half of their money to the Internet if it weren’t an advertising media. What has happened of course, is it has become an advertising medium and a direct marketing tool and emails are a cheaper way to send messages to a lot of people if you have their names and it’s easy to get clicks measured.. I think that any company that fails to prepare a good website for itself and utilize Google and Yahoo and the others to reach and influence target audience is making a huge mistake.

The entire interview can be read here

 juskitting asked, To what extent the Net economy would influence the business environment in next 5 to 10 years? I see lot of business being done over net especially in USA, just wondering how long it may take to have similar kind of trends in developing economies like India and China..if it does, would the same business models that are existing in developed markets be applicable to these upcoming economies.

Dr Philip Kotler answers, I don’t think that you will have to wait long to see the Net economy pouring into India, especially in the city and business sectors. Its use, I believe, will increase at an increasing rate and leave behind those businesses who are not alert enough to realize its power to carry on business more efficiently.

Gunz asked, Sir,What do you think should be the approach that an MNC should take in a diverse country (especially based on language and culture) like india when it is trying to market its product over the Internet?

Dr Philip Kotler answers, One answer is to concentrate to serving the online interests of one group rather than try to satisfy all cultures. Another answer is to offer different entry points into the Web site for different communities where the language- and even offer-mix is varied.

The rediff entire transcript of the rediff chat can be read here

Well from the above statements its clear than the internet is the future atleast according to Dr.Kotler but the most interesting statement is the last one here where he is saying the niche is good dont try to be everything to everyone and also customized entry points for different user groups now thats as interesting thought!

Bookmark this post to: