Q1: You are an industrial engineer and you started as a methods officer in the finance function in 1977 for Unilever (then PRC). How did this influence your thinking process in your long career in Customer Development? A: Industrial engineering, in my view, is the application of science in business.  The professional advance of Customer Development (previously called Sales) from […]

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Q1 Question to Max VP for Asia Joey Sarmiento: Using layman’s terms, what is pyramiding and what’s the main difference between legitimate multilevel marketing (MLM) and pyramiding? Answer: Network marketing or MLM is a legitimate mode of business wherein products are sold via person to person selling instead of the traditional way of selling from a fixed retail location; the objective is to sell products […]

Schools can benefit from changing their perspective with regards to how they operate. The following cases will show that even schools have something to learn. The Zero Moment-of-Truth Over a decade ago, I volunteered to help my eldest son look for a computer school and was told by one popular school that while they offered computer courses and was definitely […]

Last July 2012, I was blessed to be invited to speak at both the Asiannovation Conference of the Philippine Marketing Association (PMA), and the Franchise Asia Convention of the Philippine Franchise Association (PFA). I talked about marketing innovation in PMA while I talked about premium branding in PFA. In both talks, though I presented several marketing case studies, there was […]

Most of the things I have done in marketing and for the marketing industry can be called accidental if not for my single-minded focus on how I “live” marketing – from personal branding and positioning, to customer market segmentation and customer understanding, to love and passion for what I do. Writing books for example, is no mean feat.  I turned out […]

Q1: What is the most often overlooked aspect of shopper marketing which should be very basic to all? Great shopper marketing starts with great shopper insight. Shopper marketing is marketing. Insight drives actions and solutions. Neuroscience proved that 99% of what we do are driven by subconscious behavior or what we usually call habit. People more or less buy the […]

Q1: Prior to Mondelez, you were with Unilever, first as country brand manager, then regional brand manager, then global brand manager. Can you tell us what were the most challenging parts of each of these brand positions and why? A: At the heart of these roles is the privilege to make a brand more valuable to the business and the […]

Josiah Go features the movers and shakers of the business world and writes about marketing, strategy, innovation, execution and entrepreneurship

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