Bill Clinton said, “If no one consumes these products, people will stop producing them”. This statement clearly states that consumers are behind the reason of existence of any product no matte how big the brand is, they all were produced to meet the consumers needs and they all the living on the pocket share of their consumers. The World Marketing Summit 2012 once again reflected this statement as most speakers focused on giving importance to customers in their thought process and providing them with something more then just mere product or service.

This 3days summit at Bangabandhu International Convention Center brought together thousand of marketers, professionals, academicians and last but not the least students under one platform. Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh was once again bright up in front of the world through this summit. The WMS was inaugurated by Honorable Prime Minister Seikh Hasina in the morning with a vision to utilize marketing tools to solve some of the social problems namely food, environment, health and education. The Prime minister called for focus on consumer welfare as she inaugurated the
first-ever World summit.

1st Day Sessions:

After the inaugural ceremony gates were open for the general participants to enter. Event agenda were distributed to assist the participants in deciding which session they wish to attend as several sessions were going on simultaneously in 4 hall rooms (Fame, Celebrity, Harmony, Carnival) of BICC. The 1st session worth attending in my opinion was of Dr. Don E. Schultz’s. This Professor of Northwestern University shared his ideas about Integrated Marketing Communication. In his 20mins session he inundated the crowd talking about some new ideas of IMC. Inclusive, Sharing and Trusting are the three terms in his word most necessary for today’s business. Marketers need to include their customer in their thought process, share their ideas with customers and above all build a trust relationship. He also mentioned that if there is no customer, there will not be any marketing. According to him, established marketing approaches do not work in establishing economy and that, most marketing campaigns target only 20% population of the world. So there needs to be a system which also targets the rest 80% population of the world. At this point of discussion he mentioned a theory called SIVA. S stand for Solution - Provide your customer a complete solution; I stands for Information - Provide necessary information; V stands for Value - Don't just sell product/service, provide a value and last but not the least A stands for Access - Give your customer access in your process.

Immediately after Dr. Scultz’s session, COO (chief operating officer) Nielsen, Mitchell Habib talked about Consumer Insights leading to a better world. With an eye catching slide show he describes how Nielsen works to identify consumer insight in emerging nations. He started of with his statement that, every organization behaves in the way their top management behaves. From his words the audience learnt that for emerging world, the key to unlock innovation is sociology, technology and cost. An ideal blend of these three will bring success in emerging countries and that’s what Nielsen follows in these countries. The COO then moved on in explaining some cases in rural areas of India like Telemedicine, ATM booths etc where they’ve worked in partnership with Professor Ashok Chunchunwala of Indian Institute of Technology. Together they’ve found out what were the reasons behind unwillingness in using these technologies were fear, lack of knowledge about technology etc. Keeping this in mind, Nielsen innovates according to the market environment they are working in; here innovation starts with their customers. Mr. Habib then moved on discussing about their work on women, empowerment and philanthropy. Nielsen found that most workers are undervalued in the world, and they believe in demolishing this process. He finished off his session with their social participation in Bangladesh where in association with Unicef they helped 80% Bangladeshi children immunized. This session of Nielsen cleared their view which is to help the companies measure their ROI through social investment.

After lunch, Dr. Hermann Simon; Founder Chairman of Simon-Kucher & Partners discussed about his research on Hidden Champions Role Models of Marketing & Leadership in the 21st Century. Export oriented companies like Chemetall, Sick, 3P scientific, Ulhmann, Flexi were highlighted here, who are winning big bucks then any other renowned organizations. Why were these companies’ champions? Simon found that, mediocre companies do better in export rather then big companies. This is because they have extremely ambitious goal relating to market leadership and growth. For a champion these are their fuel. One cannot effort to stumble in their journey to become world market leader. Focus and depth is the key to it. Focus on what you are specialized on and dig deeper into it so that your customer cannot think of anyone else other then you when they need something of your specialization. For export oriented companies of emerging nations, Dr. Simon’s words can play the role of mentor.

In the Panel Discussion on Reducing the Gap between Reality and Expectation of an Emerging Country, the speakers uplifted the spirit of emerging world. This Panel comprised of Prof Dr. Philip Kotler - Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Prof Dr. Luiz Moutinho - Chair of Marketing, Business School, University of Glasgow, Dr. Donald Schulz - Professor, Northwestern University, USA, Dr Tawfiq - E - Elahi Chowdhury BB- Energy Advisor, Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh. In this panel all the speakers agree on one thing that reality and expectation all are in our head. If you know your capabilities and work accordingly, there will not be any gap. One of the professors said if we follow three things, the gap will be demolished. First, focus on reality not perception. Perception will eventually follow reality. Second, this is the time for emerging nations. And three, do not do traditional marketing, do something new. Do not follow the advanced nations as an example. They have also suggested that for emerging countries future depends on three things – Youth, Women and Negation. A new energy of optimism was enforced in this session for Bangladesh.

With excitement in mind to have seen the marketing guru’s live, I await to experience the next day.