Re:thinking Marketing

The Essence of Spiritual Marketing

Few days ago, I received an article from my colleague. It is an old article actually, wrote around 2 years ago. In that article, I read how marketing has been used to promote the Church to be seen more appealing than others.

Churches started applying business-world’s marketing techniques (or secular marketing, refered to by the author) to ‘sell’ their church, and as we all know, the competition between churches start to begin, many marketing tools (especially promotion and communication) have been developed, and even worse, some institutions make ‘religion’ as a business.

I am a marketer, but also a Catholic. From my opinion, marketing has been used unwisely in promoting religions. Marketing should not be used to promote the church, but deeper than that, it should be used to “market” the good values found in a religion. The values of goodwill, helping others, loving thy neighbors, etc are something that should be communicated, and not the physical church itself.

The same ‘disease’ is also happening in the case of Sharia banking in Indonesia. Most of the Sharia banking bodies are strictly communicating Sharia-only values to attract customers, but I believe that to market Sharia (especially in Indonesia), we must communicate the common values that Sharia share with the universal virtues and emphasizing how Sharia is implementing those values sincerely. These virtues include transparency, fairness and honesty. Only by this way that the mass can understand better what Sharia stands for, and not viewing Sharia as something in silo, separated from the common society. This is because in actual fact, Sharia values can and should appeal to Moslems as well as non-Moslems because they are universal virtues.

Moreover, I just learned that in the savvy level, all religions have the same universal values, and that is LOVE. In fact, I have written some books about Compassionate Carketing: Spiritual Marketing and Berbisnis dengan Hati (co-authored with Aa Gym) and Marketing 3.0: Values-Driven Marketing (co-authored with Philip Kotler). The most important message in those books is just one: To Do Marketing with Meaning.

At the end, I have agreed with the author of the article's conclusion, “If we were selling Pepsi, I would tell you to attack Coke. But we are in the business of Christ and His Kingdom, and there is no benefit in smearing one expression of the church to make our version look more appealing to religious consumers”.

Values-Driven Marketing Book Launching

I launched my newest book, written with Philip Kotler titled Marketing 3.0: Values-Driven Marketing in the "Rethinking ASEAN: Towards ASEAN Community 2015" seminar. This book is very special for me for several reasons. First, this book was launched in the commemorates of my 60th birthdays that will be celebrated on November 18; Second, the President of R.I., H.E. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono gave a foreword for this book; and Third, this book will be published internationally by the biggest Indonesian book publishing company. Then, this book is my fifth book I wrote with Philip Kotler!

In this book, we argued that marketing has moved to its next stage: Marketing 3.0. I define Marketing 1.0 as a product-centric era, marked with the famous saying of Henry Ford, "Any customers can have a car painted any color that he wants as long it is black". When it comes to today’s information age where consumers are well informed and can compare several value offerings of similar products, then the product value is defined by the consumer. I called it Marketing 2.0 or customer-centric era.

Finally, we sooner will witness the rise of Marketing 3.0 or the human-centric era where consumers will be treated as human beings who are active, anxious, and creative. They will request more participation in value creation. They will demand their deepest anxieties and desires—not traditional needs and wants—identified and fulfilled and they will ask for their creativity to be appreciated.

Below are pictures when I gave a copy of this book to the President of R.I, H.E Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during the Values-Driven Marketing book launching. For those who are interested to explore this book, the white paper of this book can be downloaded by clicking the link below.

Click here to download the white paper of marketing_3.0: Values-Driven Marketing

WIEF: Strategies for Islamic Branding

Hermawan Kartajaya @ World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF)

I was invited by The World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) to be one of the panel speakers in the third WIEF conference "Global Challenges - Innovative Partnerships" in Kuala Lumpur on 27-29 May 2007. I was so honored to be the only non Moslem speaker in the conference that held under the auspices of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). In this annual conference, the President of Republic of Indonesia, H.E Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, was invited as a keynote speaker in the conference. I was asked to speak on how Islamic-based companies (in the ASEAN countries) succeed in a globalised world.

I always say that globalization creates paradox, made multinational companies going localized, and we, as ASEAN companies, must co-exist and collaborate to face the competition. One big question has shown up, how the Islamic-brand companies can well accepted in the global world as most of the peoples less prefer company which integrating business with religious values. I am not a Moslem, and I don’t know much about Islam religion, but in term of marketing perspective, I saw there are three strategic choices for Islamic-based companies that leveraged from the Islamic’s values, which are religious values, cultural values, and universal values. The Islamic’s universal values, such as honesty, transparency, etc are values that accepted and respected by global market. Moslem market is a huge market, especially in ASEAN market where most of the peoples are Moslem. But if k. Multinational companies have seen this opportunity, such as HSBC with its “HSBC Amanah”, Citibank with Citibank Berhad, and they use the universal values to enter the market. In Indonesia, there are Mandiri bank and Mega bank that already built Sharia division, and Trimegah securities which based on Sharia values also. Surprisingly, most of the consumer is non-moslem.

At the end of the conference, I was interviewed by RTM 1, Malaysia due to my opinion about Islamic’s universal values as a strategy for Islamic companies to expand its business. Below is short interview with RTM 1, Malaysia

Hermawan Kartajaya on Church Book Launching in Surabaya

Last Saturday at 5th May 2007, in Catholic Centre Surabaya, “Hermawan Kartajaya on Church” book was launched. I didn’t write this book by myself, but Priest Greg Soetomo SJ. Followed my marketing methodology, he adjusted some of my marketing method to be applied in the church. I had a little session during the launching and I gave a spoke how marketing could be used to become a great Christian in the business world. Lot of peoples attended the launching event, and they are very enthusiast in following all the events. The representative of archdiocese Surabaya, Priest Harianto attended the event also, and I was very proud having him as my guest of honor. This book launching is one part of my 60th year’s birthday ceremonial.

Sharia Marketing Book Launch at ICTR-KLCC

Last week, I was invited by the Malaysian Takaful Association and Islamic Banking and Finance Institute of Malaysia to give a speech for the 2nd International Convention on Takaful and Retakaful entitled “Reshaping Takaful Landscape: Forging Global Excellence”. This event was attended by almost 150 people from all over the world.

At this prestigious event, I also launched the Sharia Marketing book (English edition) which I wrote with M. Syakir Sula.

My session, on the second day, is about Sharia Marketing: The Sustainable Way of Doing Business. In my presentation, I said, as companies strive to establish sustainable businesses; they have to consider four things that are: Change, Competitor, Customer and the Company itself. Changes which occurred in the global scale (digitalization, globalization, futurization) have forced people to become paradoxical. However, this will also lead them to find the ultimate bliss, because only when people feel confused and mixed-up in their daily lives will they want to find the real meaning of their lives. For the takaful business, that is a big opportunity because the system that is offered by takaful is based on mutual cooperation that operates in sincerity, moral attitudes and sharia-based investment principles like the principle of mudharabah, musyarakah and so on. Unfortunately, the exposure of the system has not yet been optimum and many people still do not understand what exactly the takaful business offers and how is it different from conventional business?

Therefore, I said, takaful business needs marketing to enhance and support the business but in sharia ways. As I always mention in my speech, that actually sharia marketing means: sharia-endorsed marketing activities and marketing endorsed sharia-based business activities. But, that only happens if you only do the marketing in the right way. I argued that the real meaning of marketing is about positioning, differentiation, and brand. Brand and positioning create identity, positioning and differentiation create integrity, differentiation and brand create image. The important part in this PDB triangle is the positioning and differentiation part because it will shape the integrity of your business. And Integrity is the key that will lead your success toward becoming a sustainable enterprise.

In short, I was very delighted because after the presentation, some participants from the Saudi Arabia, Brunei, and other countries came to me and asked me about my ideas in marketing this sharia business. And I am very happy if I can help sharia or takaful-based business to grow because its principles are good and highly compassionate.

CREATING VALUE FOR GOD, MOTHER NATURE, AND COMMUNITY

Drs Tjokorde Gde Swastika MM is the member of the Ubud Palace Royal Family. He is the youngest of the three princes of the most respected family in Ubud, Bali. His does various daily work, from painting, making BARONG and Masks, to lecturing Marketing in Universitas Udayana (the number one University in Bali).

For Tjokorde Gde, Marketing is not only for creating value for Customers, People and Shareholders. But also for God, Mother Nature and Society. Why? Because God creates the Mother Nature, and Mother Nature is the resource of everything, and Society, especially the surrounding community is the ones who maintain it.

So when he established his hotel: Royal Pita Maha in Ubud, he was thinking the harmony and balance between the area of people and God. He involved surrounding community to work at the hotel. Even, during the five month orientation period, everyone was involved in collecting stones from Ayung River in building the flowing pool for inside rafting.

For Tjokorde Gde, his business has six main stakeholders: God, Mother Nature, Community, Customer, People and Shareholder...

And guess what…. that is his final thesis for the Master-Degree in Marketing he received several years back.

Royal Pita Maha Hotel in Ubud, Bali is his brainchild. He is the architect, civil engineer, and owner of Royal Pita Maha, the only hotel in where you can touch Ayung River water directyly, And you even can see and give wave to the people rafting through the river. The hotel is not only about that though. And yet it's not about the amazing SPA, but what it's really unique and distinctive is the wellness that it offers. I have to say that this is not a hotel, but a healing centre.

I Met Jesus on Easter

No, he is not Jesus for sure. He's an Anglican who studies all religions. He shared so many good things to me on Easter Day in Ubud.

I consider this year easter to be one of the most surreal easter sunday i've ever experienced. I think God sent me to this place on Easter Day....thanks to my host the Ubud Royal Prince: Tjokorde Gde Swastika, who have opened my eyes to see the wonderful world.

Syariah Marketing @ Macan Yaohan Syariah

I was in Medan last week and soft-launched the next spiritual book on "Syariah Marketing" in front of Al Ansor, the Musholla inside the very first Syariah Supermarket in Indonesia: Macan Yaohan Syariah

@ National Development Planning Agency

After coming back from London and New York, I was invited to give a 2-hour speech in National Development Planning Agency ( BAPPENAS ) in Jakarta, February 16, 2006.

Shown below is Drs. Paskah Suzetta, National Planning Minister, giving his official speech.

I covered the topic on Sustainable Governance, how the government can get inspired by the 'underground' work from the private sectors and NGO-s who are doing some good work for them to do well. As i just came back from attending "Business Action in Asia: Building Partnership for Sustained Economic Development" (a workshop organized by Commonwealth Business Council, in London) i reported to BAPPENAS about some hot issues discussed over the event....

To download my presentation, click here

Marketing for Sustainable Development @ London

I was the only Marketing Panelist in a Sustainable Development "Business Action in Asia" Conference in London on Feb 1. The "by invitation only" conference was attended by 250 people coming from various countries in Asia.

The organizer of the event is Commonwealth Business Council (CBC), and supported by Department for International Development (DFID).

Panelists are from various countries. The opening session which was chaired by Bajaj Boss, panelists consist of Ministers from India, Srilangka and Indonesia plus Dr Supatchai, Director of UNCTAD (former director of WTO). and most of them just arrived from the Alps to attend the World Economic Forum at Davos.

Dr Supatchai was taking two acronyms from Davos which were PPP and CSR. Public-Private Partnership and Corporate Social Responsibility. Those two acronyms, he argued, were the most important issues for Business Action in Asia for Sustainable Development. Being the only Marketing Guy, I differentiated myself by arguing that not so many people really understood Marketing.

And..I also argued that Marketing could contribute some thing fundamental to the Big Issue like Sustainable Development. So I said that we had to reframe PPP to 4P! But 4P did not stand for Marketing Mix. But Public-Private Partnership for PEOPLE, I referred to the traditional four engines of Economic Growth which are Consumer Spending (People disposable income), Government Spending (Public Budget), Investment and Net Export (both are Private Initiatives).

Any Government Spending, Investment and International Trade which can’t increase People Disposal Income are nothing. So many proofs indicate that rich/poor gap widened when growth accelerated. Why? Because, not all people can embrace the Growth. Only minority of the people can enjoy the bigger national cake.

And I also added two brakes. The negative aspects of an economic growth which were Social Cost and Environmental Cost.

So I proposed to change the formula to Sustainable Economic Growth to:

C + G+ I + (X-M) - SC - EC

The first four is the Engines and the last two is the Brakes.

And, who must pay SC and EC? The People..!

So my argument was. If we wanted to talk about Sustainable Development: The role of Private Sector, we must talk about 4P not only 3P.

I also discussed about CSR. How I think that this concept is a bad thing. Body Shop does not need CSR anymore, because it is IN THE BUSINESS MODEL. They prefer to buy from community rather than big companies as suppliers. They ask their employees to do social works, not for Public Relations things! It happened also in Timberland, Ben and Jerry, Unilever and many other companies.

I call such companies: MDGs (Millenium Development Goals) Inc.

….where Commerce and Justice are truly blended.
….where Marketing and Meaning are really one.
….where Economics Benefit and Social /Environmental Cost considerations are combined.

The 8 goals of MDG which are:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

….were officially declared in 2000 and It is the accountability of MDG Inc to act accordingly. So again CSR must be replaced by MDG Inc. That is how we marketers can contribute some repositioning to the Sustainable Development efforts in the world.