Philip Kotler

By NancyTryfonopoulou

  • Philip Kotler was born

    Philip Kotler (born May 27, 1931) is an American marketing author, consultant, and professor emeritus; the S. C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (1962–2018). Kotler's parents, Betty and Maurice, emigrated from Ukraine and Russia as teenagers and settled in Chicago. Kotler was the eldest of their three sons, born in Chicago on May 27, 1931.

  • Accepted without a bachelor's degree into the Master's at the University of Chicago

    He studied at DePaul University for two years and was accepted without a bachelor's degree into the Master's program at the University of Chicago (1953).

  • Completion of his PhD

    He completed his PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1956), earning both degrees in economics. He studied under three Nobel Laureates in Economic Science: Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, and Robert Solow.

  • Postdoctoral work in mathematics

    He did a year of postdoctoral work in mathematics at Harvard University (1960)

  • Postdoctoral work in behavioral science

    He did a year of postdoctoral work in behavioral science at the University of Chicago (1961)

  • Kotler started teaching marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

    Kotler started teaching marketing in 1962 at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He believed marketing was an essential part of economics and saw demand as influenced not only by price but also by advertising, sales promotions, sales forces, direct mail, and various middlemen (agents, retailers, wholesalers, etc.) operating as sales and distribution channels.

  • Kotler published Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, and Control

    In 1967, Kotler published Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, and Control, and the world's most widely adopted textbook in graduate schools of business. Whereas previous marketing textbooks were highly descriptive, this text was the first to draw on economic science, organizational theory, psychology of behavior and choice, and analytics. It described theory and practice, and drew on findings from empirical studies and cases.

  • The Financial Times cited Marketing Management as one of the 50 greatest business books of all time

    Kotler is the author and co-author of over 166 published articles and 80 books. Kotler has also written books on such subjects as corporate social responsibility, education, environment, government marketing, healthcare, hospitality, innovation, museums, performing arts, place marketing, poverty alleviation, professional services, religious institutions, tourism, capitalism, and democracy. Kotler was invited to be the first Legend in Marketing.

  • In 2003, the Financial Times cited Kotler's three major contributions to marketing and to management

    1: done more than any other writer or scholar to promote the importance of marketing 2: continued a trend started by Peter Drucker, shifting emphasis away from price and distribution to a greater focus on meeting customers' needs and on the benefits received from a product or service. 3: broadened the concept of marketing from more selling to a general process of communication and exchange and has shown how marketing can be extended

  • Kotler started a blog

    In 2014, he started a blog on fixcapitalism.com that featured many articles on making capitalism work better for more people.

  • Kotler co-founded The Marketing Journal

    In 2016, he co-founded (with Christian Sarkar) The Marketing Journal, an online site dedicated to sharing insights and next practices in marketing.

  • Kotler published his autobiography - My Adventures in Marketing

    In 2017, Kotler published his autobiography - My Adventures in Marketing, an account of his experiences from his formative years to the present, including his views on topics such as demarketing, brand activism, marketing of the arts, place marketing, as well as the challenges facing capitalism, democracy, and the common good.

  • Kotler co-founded a think tank called The Sarasota Institute

    In 2018, Kotler co-founded a think tank with futurist David Houle and Jason Voss called The Sarasota Institute. The TSI sponsors public meetings and publishes peer-reviewed articles in ten areas: Technology, Public Policy, Natural Resources, Marketing and Media, Intelligence, Health Care, Education, Democracy, Climate Change, and Economics.

  • Kotler co-founded an online resource on progressive brand activism

    In 2018, with Christian Sarkar, he co-founded ActivistBrands.com, an online resource on progressive brand activism.

  • Kotler began an open-source project to model the world's most urgent problems

    In 2019, Christian Sarkar and Kotler began an open-source project to model the world's most urgent problems. The Wicked7 Project aims to create an online movement of individuals and institutions interested in finding "virtuous solutions" to pressing wicked problems.

  • Kotler co-founded the Regenerative Marketing Institute

    In 2021, Kotler co-founded the Regenerative Marketing Institute with Enrico Foglia and Christian Sarkar.