Professor Philip Kotler, who is a world renowned scholar in marketing and is named “the Father of marketing management”, discussed with PM Yingluck on the possibility of Thailand to host World Marketing Summit in 2014, and invited her to make a keynote speech on ‘ASEAN in the New Global Landscape’ at the event. According to Prof. Kotler, now is the era of Asian marketing, considering its growth rate and development. Thailand, in particular, has been a key player of ASEAN, and is notable for its culture. For this proposal, PM Yingluck confirmed she would assign the Policy and Strategy Committee on national image and identity to further coordinate with concerned organizations.
PM Yingluck and Prof. Kotler also exchanged views and discussed on modern marketing concepts during which the Prime Minister mentioned a ‘Re-branding Thailand’ policy which is a consequence of the ‘Branding Thailand’ project, initiated during the administration of PM Thaksin Shinawatra with an aim to build an image of Thai products and services. For this, Prof. Kotler thought it was a good idea to enhance national competitiveness and suggested an updated research as a follow up of the previous one which had been conducted in collaboration with Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University. PM Yingluck agreed that the country should conduct feasibility studies in the fields of agriculture, industry, and services based on the Government’s national strategies before actually implementing the ‘Re-branding Thailand’ policy.