Father of Marketing, Philip Kotler guides Indian Pharma on Human to Human Marketing at PharmaState Academy event

The Father of Marketing, Prof. Philip Kotler, along with his co-authors Prof. Waldemar Pfoertsch and Prof. Uwe Sponholz led the discussions which went on for close to three hours. The authors encouraged the industry personnel Pranav Kumar, Prashant Menon and Salil Kallianpur to discuss the three pillars Design Thinking Service-Dominant Logic and Digitalization in the pharma Space. Vivek Hattangadi spoke about Trust being the Foundation of H2H Mindset and Firms of Endearment.

Few excerpts from what he said include

What is H2H Marketing? It starts with developing the H2H Mindset.

If the customers are short-term winner, this is clearly not so smart for the product or the firm; it is inane on a long-term basis

When both sides are losing, then it is wasteful marketing

When you gear for long-term gain for the customer and the company, and when it is oriented to the people, it is H2H Marketing

It is the task of any Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to create the highest benefits for their customer and the company

They must work for a higher purpose by creating Human-to-Human Marketing. H2H Marketing has the ambition to leave malpractices behind. H2H Marketing offers an ethical and collaborative way of engaging with customers and for the pharma industry, it is the patients.

Firms practising H2H Marketing are focused on co-creating value together with their customers and communicating their value offerings properly.

H2H Mindset is for good pharma citizenship.

The book has three strong pillars. The integration of Design Thinking, Service-Dominant Logic and Digitalization, within the framework of the H2H Marketing Model enables marketing decisions are meaningful for everybody in the company.

1. The Growing role of design thinking in marketing

Design Thinking aims at improving the approach to innovations resulting in human- centered solutions with an enhanced customer experience, such as new products, services, or business models. Design Thinking is not an exclusive property of designers.

Design Thinking revolves around a deep interest in developing an understanding of the people for whom you are designing the products

• Empathize – with your users

• Integrative thinking

• Define – your users' needs, their problem, and your insights

• Ideate – by challenging assumptions and creating ideas for innovative solutions

• Prototype – to start creating solutions

• Test – solution

2. The Rise of Service-Dominant Logic (S-DL)

S-DL emphasizes the importance of co-creation of value in collaborative ecosystems.

Service-dominant approach integrates the product, price, and service dimensions of an offering

This helps marketers think more like their customers, which can help them add value to their firm's products

S-DL lays emphasis on co-creating the brand together with the customers and that is patients in our case.

With S-DL, value is co-created in collaboration with the patient. Marketers need to understand the new reality of co-creation, which forms an integral part of H2H Marketing.

3. The increasing role of digitalization in consumer and supplier decision making

Without a doubt, digitalization is the enabler of the 21 st Century.

It is now time for companies, especially pharmaceutical companies, to unleash the full power of advanced technologies in their marketing strategies, tactics and operations. Technology should be leveraged for the good of humanity. Digitalization provides all the means for instant, real-time actions and reactions

Customer Experience Management (CXM) strikes out in a new direction, as it becomes increasingly important to deliver a seamless experience across all customer touchpoints, whether digital or physical.

Digitalization is the enabler for the fourth industrial revolution. Deep structural changes will take place within the course of the digital transformation, with the Internet of Things (IoT) being an essential driver of change

The SoLoMo Mindset i.e. acronym for Social, Local and Mobile technology.

People stay:

- Inside of the social media world

- Can be localized through the smartphone and other technologies

- And use the Smartphone that is "Always-On" as access to the Internet ecosystem

The father of Marketing further noted that in the world of digitalization, with newly restructured relationships and changed forms of communication, the 4 P's may no longer be appropriate for today's business challenges.

The co-authors and Vivek Hattangadi further talked about how pharma can have Firms of Endearment.

" H2H firms have a strong ethical commitment to all their stakeholder groups, from their customers, suppliers, and employees to society as a whole. They share a character trait, which the co-authors call as the Firms of Endearment. Firms of Endearment are those where no stakeholder group benefits at the expense of any other stakeholder groups and each prospers as the others do. There is a strong bond between the organization and the stakeholders. And there is also a strong connect anon the stakeholders. Others first and me last is the dictum of H2H Marketing. H2H Marketing will surely disrupt pharma marketing practices. It seamlessly weaves into the patient-centric approach in pharma marketing, the marketing model of the 21 st Century," he said

The program was beautifully moderated by Gauri Chaudhari and hosted by Dr. Swati Sinha, CEO, PharmaState Academy