[caption id="attachment_17696" align="alignright" width="260"] LK Gupta, CMO, LG India[/caption] Mahatma Gandhi may have missed out on the Nobel Prize for Peace, but LK Gupta, CMO, LG India, believes that if ever there was one for Marketing, Mahatma Gandhi would’ve been its foremost winner. In a talk with Impact, as the media, marketing & advertising weekly from exchange4media Group celebrated its 8th anniversary, Gupta elaborates why Gandhi shouldv'e been a perfect candidate for the marketing award... "What does a marketer do? He devises a vision of where he wants to go and then understands the consumer, the segment or person he is communicating with. He understands the need, constructs a product that fulfills it across sectors and then executes a plan. With a keen eye on benefits, he tracks progress and communicates with teams and has back-up plans for unforeseen mishaps. "After launching initiative after initiative, he gets the people to buy into his logic, his product. He keeps all campaigns different so to get more consumers loyally supporting his product. A good marketer is also one who gets his people to become his advocates, recommending his ideas by word-of-mouth. (Too bad there was no social media during Gandhi’s time or he’d have been the most significant influencer!) "What did Gandhi do? His problem was the near-impossible task of mobilising the entire country towards a shared goal – freedom. Though his vision was clear already, he gave it a fillip by differentiating his looks, his approach and habits. "His behaviours and sheer presence became such a compelling proposition that millions began doing what he wanted them to do – step up the nonviolent movement. Whether it was shunning England-made products and going for khadi or simply courting arrest, the campaign idea that was Satyagraha unified the country and finally achieved the target. It clearly was a new proposition not only for India, but for the world, which followed it later. I know I’ve talked like a marketer here, but I truly believe that Gandhi’s was the most effective campaign ever used in the country!"