Professor Philip Kotler, widely regarded as the Father of Modern Marketing, has spent decades helping the world think beyond merely “selling more stuff
View(s):” From his early 4Ps (Product, Price,Place, Promotion) to the later 7Ps, he repeatedly refined the marketing toolkit to suit the realities of each era. Now, in a recent conversation with Sri Lankan veteran marketer Denzil Perera during his visit to Professor Kotler in Illinois, Chicago, Kotler outlined a fresh, values-driven evolution of his thinking: a 6Ps framework. This new model doesn’t discard the classic Ps. Instead, it lifts marketing out of its narrow commercial lane and places it inside a broader human, social, and planetary context. Kotler’s view is simple: in an age of climate anxiety, social fragmentation, hyper-competition, and stakeholder capitalism, marketing must serve a higher order of purpose. That’s why his 6Ps begin not with product or promotion, but with something more fundamental.
1. Purpose
Kotler’s first and most important P is Purpose. “Every organisation, brand, or person needs to have a purpose,” he emphasised.
This is more than a mission statement framed in a boardroom. Purpose answers why we exist beyond profit. Kotler has long admired companies like Unilever, whose leadership openly declared that “brands with purpose grow.
” By citing the Unilever global leadership example, he is underlining that purpose is not a decorative slogan but a strategic engine: it aligns employees, attracts customers who share values, and gives the organisation a moral north star.
In the age of conscious consumers, social media scrutiny, and Gen Z’s demand for authenticity, purpose becomes the first filter. If the “why” is weak, the rest of the marketing plan is just noise.
2. People
The second P is People. Here Kotler is making an old truth newly urgent: if you don’t take care of your people, they won’t take care of your customers.
He told Perera that organisations often leap straight to customer experience without first building employee experience. But satisfied, respected, fairly treated employees become brand ambassadors automatically. In service economies—banking, hospitality, education, healthcare—this is especially true. Marketing, therefore, is not only an external activity; it is an internal culture project.
Kotler’s repositioning of “People” also widens the circle: not just employees, but customers, partners, communities, and in many cases even regulators. Marketing must ask, “What is the human impact of our decisions?”
3. Partnerships
The third P, Partnerships, reflects a major shift in the way modern markets behave. Kotler pointed out that, in today’s world, “instead of competing, we should collaborate”
This is where the idea of co-petition (sometimes phrased as “cooperation is better than pure competition”) comes in. When two organisations recognise that working together creates a bigger pie than fighting over the same slice, long-term value emerges. Partnerships can be with suppliers, distributors, universities, NGOs, technology platforms, or even former competitors.
Kotler stressed that partnerships begin with a win–win mindset. Without that, alliances become short-term and transactional. With it, partnerships become engines of innovation, market access, and even social impact. For emerging markets like Sri Lanka—where Perera plays a key role in connecting global and local marketing thought—this principle is especially powerful:collaboration accelerates development.
4. Peace
The fourth P is strikingly human: Peace.
Kotler shared with Perera an insight he picked up from a businessman who said that “people are productive when they are at peace.
” That peace operates at multiple levels:
1. Peace within the organisation – a culture without toxic politics, fear, or instability.
2. Peace in the marketplace and society – businesses thrive in stable, peaceful environments.
3. Peace of mind for customers – the ultimate goal of marketing is not just to sell, but to reduce anxiety, friction, confusion, and risk for the customer.
This is a profound expansion of marketing’s purpose. Marketing, in Kotler’s view, should not create insecurity or FOMO just to drive sales; it should create trust, reassurance, and long-term relationships. A peaceful world is good for business—and businesses have a role in creating that peace through ethical communication, fair treatment, and social responsibility.
5. Planet
The fifth P is Planet.
Kotler is blunt about this: consumption is rising, populations are growing, and yet businesses often do not count the environmental externalities of their value creation process. That means pollution, carbon, waste, and resource depletion are treated as “someone else’s problem.”In the 6Ps framework, that is no longer acceptable.
Organisations must design for sustainability—responsible sourcing, circularity, reduced packaging, greener logistics—while consumers must become mindful of what they consume and how they consume it. Marketing, therefore, must stop glorifying endless consumption and start educating, nudging, and offering sustainable alternatives.
This P is also a warning: brands that ignore the planet will lose relevance, regulation will catch up, and younger consumers will move away. Planet is now part of the value proposition.
6. Prosperity
The final P is Prosperity—not “Profit” in the narrow, shareholder-first sense, but shared, sustained prosperity.
Kotler told Perera that real prosperity is only possible after the first five Ps are in place. If the organisation has a clear purpose, cares for its people, builds genuine partnerships, contributes to peace, and protects the planet, then the prosperity that comes is healthier, more distributed, and more resilient.
In such a system, shareholders remain important—but not the most important, and not the only voice. Employees, customers, communities, and the environment all become stakeholders.
Prosperity becomes a collective outcome, not an individual extraction.
Why This 6Ps Framework Matters Now
This new 6Ps model from Professor Kotler is, in many ways, a culmination of his lifelong effort to humanise marketing. Where the original 4Ps helped marketers do marketing, the 6Ps help organisations be responsible, relevant, and future-fit.
• From tactics to philosophy – It moves marketing from tools to values.
• From selling to serving – It reframes the marketer as a steward of relationships and the environment.
• From short term to long term – It aligns with sustainability, ESG, and stakeholder
Capitalism
That Kotler shared this thinking in conversation with Denzil Perera—a marketer working to connect global marketing ideas with Sri Lankan and regional realities—also shows another truth: this framework is not just for Western multinationals. It is for developing markets, family businesses, public sector institutions, education providers—any entity that wants to grow without harming people or the planet.
In short, Kotler’s 6Ps tell today’s
marketer: Do well, but do good first.
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