When it comes to efficiency and effectiveness, I would always start with effectiveness. I am interested in achieving a certain outcome. Only secondarily do I worry about achieving it as efficiently as possible.

My primary early interest was in marketing and my aim was to improve its theories, methods and tools. Early on I pressed companies to adopt a consumer orientation and to be in the value creation business. I didn't pay much attention to the social responsibilities of business until later. Now I am pressing companies to address the triple bottom line: people, the planet, and profits. I found that companies were too much into short term profit maximization and they needed to invest more in sustainability thinking.

There is much work to do to protect forests from over-timbering and oceans and lakes from over-fishing. We need to encourage and reward companies that create jobs to reduce the carbon footprints of offices and buildings and homes.

Marketing is becoming a battle based on information than on sales power.

The CEO announces that the purpose of the firm is to improve the lives of the customers and the lives of the firm's stakeholders and the quality of the planet. The company will give fair compensation to all the stakeholders and the CEO will not earn more than 20 times the median income of his employees. He will want his employees to rate him, just as he also has to rate them.

The art of marketing is the art of brand building. If you arenot a brand, you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low-cost producer is the only winner.

Watch the product life cycle; but more important, watch the market life cycle.