The Friendship that Changed Forever

How a 55-year friendship and intellectual partnership made marketing larger than life

By Hal Conick

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MN June_2017__mm edits.indd 73 5/16/17 11:58 AM Sidney Levy had become fascinated with marketing.

A trained behavioral scientist, he suspected that branding went beyond soap, steel and candy bars. He’d been researching the social aspects of marketing since the 1940s and saw the field’s vast potential. In 1961, he began teaching marketing classes at ’s Kellogg School of Management. Levy’s first year at Kellogg was an exciting time for marketing, with a booming economy, booming consumerism and a baby boom in the years after WWII. The recently invented color TV was brought into living rooms across America, carrying with it hours of previously nonexistent In 1962, Kotler was recruited to under Nobel laureates such ad space. A large audience was not Kellogg and told by the school that as , only reachable but willing to be he could choose to teach either and . While Kotler reached; marketing and economics or marketing. After a visit didn’t have a marketing background, became more important than ever with Levy and other members of the he—like Levy—did have a unique for big business. From 1950 to 1960, faculty, Kotler says his choice was viewpoint and a desire to refine and annual advertising expenditures in the clear: “I chose marketing.” expand the field. U.S. quadrupled from $1.3 billion to $6 “That was one of the attractive Fifty-five years after joining billion, according to The Advertising things in meeting the faculty Kellogg, Kotler is affectionately Age Encyclopedia of Advertising. and deciding whether to join known by marketers as the “father of It was also an exciting time for Northwestern: meeting Sid Levy,” modern marketing.” Over those five the Kellogg school, which was Kotler says. “Sid and I hit it off early. and a half decades, Kotler, Levy and transitioning from a traditional faculty He’s a very charming and interesting other faculty members at Kellogg and marketing program to a school man; an original mind, fresh insights studied, explained and thought that included scholars from outside into things.” about marketing in ways no one the field. One such scholar was an Kotler, like Levy, did not have a had before. “We actually wanted to economist named Philip Kotler. marketing degree. He had studied hire people who were not trained in

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MN June_2017__mm edits.indd 74 5/16/17 11:58 AM “Both Kotler and Levy had a profound influence on marketing as we know it today. Levy did pioneering things in the domain of branding, culture and the realm marketing,” Kotler says. “Not that it impact on the marketing industry of the symbolic. Had he not conquered was a prejudice. It was that we would reverberates, and their bond as lifelong this exciting territory early on, marketing go further if we had different social friends holds strong. would not exist today as a ‘social science sciences in our group.” That diversification of ideas spread Changing discipline,’ and most of us contemporary, throughout academia and, soon after, Marketing, culturally oriented marketing and consumer the marketing business world. Levy, Changing Society researchers wouldn’t even be here. who ran Kellogg’s doctoral program In the age of post-WWII explosive Kotler must be credited for having spending, marketing was a narrow established marketing as an MBA and field that focused on practice sans boardroom institution. He really ‘translated’ theory. Businesses spent money but marketing knowledge in ways that made didn’t know what kind of ROI they it accessible and desirable to a wide array were getting on campaigns or what of stakeholders and industries. He made went on in the mind of the customer, marketing resonant to engineers, nor could they properly segment managers, city officials, political leaders customer bases. But for each of these issues, and media journalists. It could be argued it seemed Kotler and Levy had that Kotler is marketing’s best marketer.” an answer—or at least a series of —Markus Giesler, chair of the marketing edifying questions to ask. The duo department at York University’s Schulich brought unique concepts and ways School of Business and director of the Big of thinking to marketing, just as Design Lab Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky brought to behavioral economics. Take, for example, Kotler’s assertion that marketing is a branch of economics, a thought that likely behavior theory and mathematics.” drew some cross looks in the 1950s. His book Now, Kotler’s assertion is accepted [Analysis, Planning, and Control] was and practiced by academics and a big risk, he says, because all the work executives. “The field of economics is could have collapsed if professors Philip Kotler, becoming very rich because of what didn’t respond well. Sidney Levy and Nancy Kotler in marketers have been studying for 100 Kotler was pleasantly surprised as Levy’s living room. years,” Kotler says. professors not only responded well to In his early years at Kellogg, his 1967 textbook, but many lauded Kotler spent a lot of time reading it as the best book on marketing they for 16 years, says the influence of extant marketing textbooks. They had read. It was adopted in classrooms Kellogg’s golden era stretched far were disappointing. Most books across the U.S., then the world. Fifty and wide: His first three student described what a salesman, wholesaler years later, the book remains in print graduates became the heads of or advertiser would do in a given and is in its 15th edition. marketing departments at the Sloan situation, but none were based on Levy was doing his own School of Management (Alvin Silk); data. None had analytical models. The intellectual heavy lifting. His the Haas School of Business (John books were anecdotal, dry and not landmark 1959 paper titled “Symbols Myers) and the Wharton School well-researched. for Sale” was the first to say that (Tom Robertson). Kotler’s textbooks “The whole idea of being analytical marketing goes beyond simply selling are used in universities across the and trying to get explanations of practical merchandise—it also sells world. More than 3 million copies a phenomenon rather than just symbols. Anyone with a pair of Nike have been sold, and they’ve been describing things descriptively sneakers or a Gucci bag likely knows translated into 20 languages. was in my mindset,” Kotler says. “I this now, but at the time Levy’s In 2017, the AMA turned 80, Kotler immediately said that we needed a concept was novel. Ever the social turned 86 and Levy turned 96. Though textbook in marketing which was scientist, Levy argued that marketers Kotler and Levy have not formally based on four foundations: economics, needed to consider the personal and worked together in two decades, their organizational theory, consumer social meanings behind what people

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MN June_2017__mm edits.indd 75 5/16/17 11:58 AM Photo proofs of Kotler, Levy and others from the 1984 and 1985 AMA Summer Educators Conferences in and Washington, D.C.

buy, the diversity of spending and Sid and used them as their own.” No “the recognition of modern goods matter, as Levy’s groundbreaking work as essentially psychological things on branding is in print for all to see. which are symbolic of personal While each man did important attributes and psychological goals,” as solo work, perhaps their most the paper says. formidable breakthroughs came “Quite independently of one another, Phil “This seems obvious if we grant the in tandem. In 1969, Levy and and Sid had as big an impact on marketing importance of symbols—but not all Kotler co-authored a paper in businessmen do, of course, and that the AMA’s Journal of Marketing thought as anyone else I know. What is also has accounted for many failures in titled “Broadening the Concept of unusual is that this impact is felt among ,” Levy wrote. “Greater attention Marketing.” Levy and Kotler laid out both practitioners and academics. If that to consumers’ modes of thought will the idea that marketing was about isn’t special enough, we find that together, give marketing management and more than goods and services, it through their joint work on broadening the research increased vitality, and, in was about places, people and ideas. concept of marketing, they further shaped turn, add to its own practical and Instead of simply focusing on soap, how we even conceive of the field in the symbolic merits.” toothbrushes and televisions, they first place. … The atmosphere [at Kellogg] In addition to advancing the idea wanted to expand marketing to cover was special and made more special by of brand symbols and brand image, cities, ideas and policies, too. the ways in which everyone stimulated the Levy is credited by many with coining In 1969, the article was presented department’s intellectual goals.”— Gerald the term “brand.” Kotler says Levy at the AMA’s Summer Educators’ Zaltman, former Kellogg faculty member and first used the word at a conference Conference. “I regarded it as an where David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy assertion of the universal application current Joseph C. Wilson Professor Emeritus and Mather, “picked up” the word of marketing activities to all at Harvard Business School from him. “So Sid didn’t get credit for individuals and organizations,” Levy inventing that,” Kotler says. “But many says. “I had already done marketing people have picked up ideas from research work since 1946 for

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MN June_2017__mm edits.indd 76 5/16/17 11:58 AM Recent Titles Kotler and Levy have not stopped working. Check out these recent books from both marketing legends:

Kotler: Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital (2016) Marketing for Competitiveness: Asia to the World - in the Age of Digital Consumers (2016) Marketing: An Introduction, Sixth Canadian Edition (2016) Confronting : Real Solutions for a Troubled Economic System (2015) Marketing Management, Student Value Edition (2015)

Levy: The Theory of the Brand (2016) A Marketing Educator’s Career: Living the American Dream. A Memoir (2015)

“So everything that’s opposite True to themselves, the friendship of building up the demand is to was far bigger than marketing. When take down a demand,” Kotler says. they first met, Levy and Kotler quickly “Demarketing is the science of discovered that their parents had reducing the demand for something, owned businesses not far from such as the demand for arrests or each other in Chicago. Outside of for using water very carelessly when campus, they spent time together with there’s a shortage.” their families. Levy’s daughter babysat In another 1971 paper—this one by for Kotler’s young children. Kotler Kotler and , a fellow fondly remembers he and his wife, numerous kinds of individuals and Kellogg staff member who is now the Nancy, sitting in Levy’s living room, organizations—[such as] politicians, Joseph C. Wilson Professor Emeritus pulling up a seat to a big table and entertainers, hospitals—the article at Harvard Business School—titled finding out what Levy’s two children was a natural extension of the idea “: An Approach to had learned that day. of marketing.” Planned Social Change,” the phrase At work, Kotler and Levy would go When this paper was published, “social marketing”—now also known to lunch and talk about anything— Kotler and Levy polled of some of the by many as cause marketing— music, art, forms of government, top academic economists on whether was born. The paper showed how health care. These big conversations they were in favor of broadening marketing analysis, planning and were often not about marketing, the concept of marketing or if they control could help solve societal but Kotler says they helped jar wanted it to remain defined as the problems such as safe driving and loose some of his and Levy’s biggest sale of goods and services. “Marketing family planning. ideas. Levy was—like Kotler—also will either take on a broader social There’s no measurement of how a “cosmopolitan type,” unafraid to meaning or remain a narrowly defined far any of Levy or Kotler’s ideas have broach any subject. business activity,” they wrote in the spread through marketing, but their “Sid and I may have talked a lot paper. The response to the poll was pervasiveness is undeniable. about Karl Marx in the sense of there overwhelmingly positive and a broader was a proletariat, there are poor definition of marketing was born. “It Was Not Just people and there are people who are What Kotler considers to be his Two Professors.” super rich,” he says, touching on a and Levy’s biggest idea was that of Ideas from Kotler and Levy laid controversial topic in the years after “demarketing.” The 1971 paper, titled the groundwork for modern McCarthyism and the Red Scare. “We “Demarketing, Yes, Demarketing,” marketing, but the ideas also helped wondered, ‘What is a good society?’ explained that there are some products build the foundation for a 55-year We would talk about questions like that are either not good for people or friendship. “We had a family that. ‘What makes for happiness in are in short supply. These products relationship, too,” Kotler says. “It life?’ and so on and so forth. We were need to be rationed, they wrote. was not just two professors.” just free-thinker types.”

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MN June_2017__mm edits.indd 77 5/16/17 11:58 AM The Definition of Marketing Here’s how the AMA, Kotler and Levy each define marketing

The AMA Board of Directors: “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions and During a 2015 visit on his 94th processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have birthday, Levy gave a talk titled “A value for customers, clients, partners and society at large.” Theory of the Brand.” Levy discussed his belief that branding is the central “The science and art of exploring, creating and delivering value to Philip Kotler: concept of marketing. Unsurprisingly, satisfy the needs of a target at a profit. Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs a conversation broke out. Kotler and desires. It defines, measures and quantifies the size of the identified market and stood up and disagreed with Levy, the profit potential. It pinpoints which segments the company is capable of serving expressing his belief that marketing best and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services.” itself is the central concept and branding is only a piece of the puzzle. Sidney Levy: “I see marketing as essentially all exchanges where people seek to This type of disagreement has not achieve their purposes. But that would have to include activities that do not seem to happened often between the two— pursue ‘value’ or ‘profit’ except in a larger sense that I don’t think the AMA or Philip especially publicly—as their bond have in mind. ... So, here is why I think marketing is a function of branding, not the prevents odious comments from reverse as is commonly thought. People’s motives are basically to be themselves, escaping the mouth of either. Kotler to have their identities and express their purposes. In doing that, they create their says he would never disparage Levy, branding and gain their reputations. Whether they are individuals or are in groups or but they disagreed from time to time. organizations, they engage in an exchange of objects, money, ideas and actions, However, their friendship was not in order to implement that branding. Marketing is what we call that implementation, one that depended on agreement. making it a function of branding. That overall branding I sometimes refer to as ‘grand They could push each other without branding’ is commonly confused with the specifics of logos and advertisements taking it personally. “We may disagree but it was with as parts of the implementation. We have different ways of marketing as we seek to the best of intentions,” Kotler says, implement different categories of purpose, such as commercial marketing, intimate reflecting back on the 2015 meeting. marketing, social marketing and labor marketing.” “If I remember, we had the faculty listening to Sid talk and present a view and something in me said, ‘I would think differently about that.’ That was not to be cited as a typical thing between us. Most of the time we just Often, their conversations would lead Kotler, who still teaches at Kellogg enjoyed each other’s viewpoints.” to action. Kotler recalls a lunch where he but is mulling retirement in 2018, Levy recalls the humor of the and Levy got out their pens and paper laughs when mentioning Levy’s event: “Actually, the one time we met and worked out what an American attempt at retirement. “You think he’s at Kellogg a couple of years ago and single-payer health care system might retired, but he went from Northwestern he said he disagreed with me about look like. They weren’t satisfied with to that other place,” Kotler says with an what I had said about the priority of improving marketing: Levy and Kotler air of disbelief. Perhaps he just wanted grand branding, I just said, ‘Philip, wanted to answer life’s biggest questions. to go somewhere warmer where his I am not going to disagree with you In 1991, Levy retired from Kellogg. wife could have a garden full of plants, publicly,’ and that ended the session, He remained an active member of the Kotler says. But listening to Kotler’s with laughter from the audience,” faculty until 1997, but then he and voice, one can sense his belief that Levy says. “I just meant I didn’t want his wife moved to Arizona where the he and Levy could have had more to embarrass him by explaining why weather is a bit warmer than the snowy, conversations, answered more big he was wrong. windy conditions that tend to denude questions and made marketing even “But we are good friends,” Levy the trees on Lake Michigan’s shores. broader if Levy had stayed. continues. “Intellectual shades of Ever the workman, Levy’s “retirement” difference don’t affect that. I have always turned into his chairmanship of the Dealing with loved and admired Philip and Nancy.” University of Arizona’s marketing Disagreement department at the Eller College of While the two men now see each Pushing the Management. Now, at 96, he continues other less often, Levy returns to Boundaries of to live on Arizona’s campus and works Kellogg every two years—most Marketing as the Coca-Cola Distinguished recently in May 2017—to visit Kotler From the time Levy and Kotler Professor of Marketing. and Kellogg’s marketing students. first shook hands 55 years ago to

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MN June_2017__mm edits.indd 78 5/16/17 12:21 PM From the Market- ing News archives: Kotler holds up a Russian copy of his book Marketing Management.

present day, marketing has expanded larger than anyone—Levy and Kotler aside—ever imagined. Levy and Kotler’s admiration for and conversation with each other played a big role in pushing them and the industry forward. Each wanted marketing to become bigger, but also moral and ethical at its core. “Sid and I were always concerned about making marketing a good field, a field that people could be proud of,” Kotler says. “If I said, ‘I’m a marketer,’ people might say, ‘You’re trying to sell me something.’ And they always have stories of bad companies and bad selling. We wanted to make it “I like that island of social “Certainly their classic paper, a field that actually should enrich scientists,” Kotler says, counting off a ‘Broadening the Concept of Marketing,’ lives. The best definition we used to list of professors at Kellogg and their reframed the conversation about use was marketing’s aim is to raise differing specialties—anthropology, marketing among both practitioners and the standard of living of a whole economics, social science—all with a academics to be less tactical and more community, to give people higher focus on pushing the boundaries on philosophical and strategic. This has aspirations and higher capabilities.” marketing. “We even began to forget led marketing departments at business This aim strikes at the heart of we were anything else. I didn’t do schools to seek faculty with training in why Levy and Kotler wanted to that much economics initially in the basic disciplines such as economics and expand marketing: It needed to classical theory point of view; I was become larger to be used for a greater a social scientist. By the way, I went psychology. This has had an enormous purpose. While marketers should back to the impact on marketing practice, helping it keep the best of the old tactics, for an extra year to bone up on more to move up the corporate ladder and now Kotler says marketing is a field where social science, so Sid was a major reside in the C-suite.” professionals must always evolve influence on my thinking.” — Alice Tybout, Harold T. Martin and grow, just as he and Levy did. Levy says the atmosphere at Professor of Marketing at Kellogg School If a CEO came up to Kotler and Kellogg during his days of tenure were of Management asked him to sign the 1967 version “remarkably familial.” of Marketing Management, adding “We did not suffer the emotional that he still uses it in business today, divisions that some schools have Kotler says he’d look the CEO in the among their partisan thinkers,” he were so broad, we had to broaden it,” eye and tell him “you’re doomed says. “Our quantitative, qualitative he says with a laugh. “In other words, to fail.” There’s always a new idea, and managerial groups were amiable, ironically we did this for our own always fresh knowledge, always congenial and discussed in outspoken sake. We wanted to be thinking about something to expand upon. but friendly ways. We had a picnic at bigger issues and the field was narrow. Levy agrees, saying there’s still the lakefront every spring and a party Broadening was our answer.” room to grow in a field pregnant with at the Levy house every fall. Together, Kotler and Levy smile upon their potential: “Despite all that has happened we built the eminence of Kellogg days of broadening marketing, since WWII, which is tremendous, School’s Department of Marketing.” even now across the broad expanse there is still a long way to go for people When Kotler speaks about the golden between them. “If I’m not too late to learn about marketing and how to era of Kellogg and his work with Levy in for your meeting with Philip, please engage in it for greater benefit.” expanding the definition of marketing, give him my regards,” Levy says from Kotler and Levy were always he becomes reflective and pauses. Arizona. Kotler laughs when he hears forward thinkers looking for that “You know, let me give you a little from his friend and partner, 1,700 greater benefit. During Kellogg’s insight that I just realized myself: miles away. “Sid’s a great guy and I’m golden era, Kotler says it was Maybe what we felt was marketing looking forward to seeing him when especially helpful to have each other. was too narrow for us. Our interests he comes.” m

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