My marketing mentor

(Happy birthday Dr. Ned!)

AS a kid, I grew up listening to my dad, Ned Roberto, Ph.D. (or Dr. Ned or Lolo Ned to the thousands of people he has taught and mentored), tell marketing stories. He’d tell me about the problems and concerns that his clients came to him with. My dad has a Ph.D. in marketing from Northwestern University’s Kellog School of Marketing. His mentor and teacher was his professor, and later on his friend and co-author, THE Philip Kotler, whose Marketing Principles textbook is still required reading for all business majors.

My dad, Dr. Ned, is my marketing mentor. He’s also known here in the Philippines as the marketing guru or the marketing research guru. He taught marketing at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) for more than 25 years or so. Dad made his big mark in marketing research and marketing strategy.

Anyway, my dad is like a doctor. He is a doctor, but not that kind of doctor. (For many years, a staff member at Basic Advertising, where my dad was a board member and research director, I would ask “Dr. Ned” medical advice about simple ailments, like coughs and colds and headaches. Since he handled the Unilab account, he gave pretty sound advice. Like, take a Neozep and call me in the morning! (I think we should call Ph.D.s by a different name to avoid all the confusion.) Regardless, clients come to my dad to have marketing problems or marketing illnesses, if you will, diagnosed and cured. So, they called him Dr. Ned.

Okay back to the marketing stories. The stories always kept me wide-eyed as we drove home together from Makati to BF Parañaque via South Suffer Highway. (During the pre-Skyway days of the early ’90s, that was a good 1.5-2-hour drive.) Here were just two of the hundreds and hundreds that he would share:

From Jolly….

There was the story about how this Fil-Chinese named Tony came to him when his fast-food chain was still but a rising but struggling brand that was victim of marketing sabotage—rumors were being spread that their burgers were mixed with worms. Remember those days? Anyway, Dad would tell me how he and Basic Advertising did market research to help Tony and Jollibee. A simple observation and survey—that Pinoys loved to sniff their burgers before they bit into it—led to the mega successful, “Langhap Sarap!” campaign. That established Jollibee’s product superiority over McDo. To drive home the point in his AIM classes, he’d do wacky things like wear a Jollibee food server’s uniform when discussing the Jollibee case.

…to Happy stories

There was another time when Dad told me about this entrepreneur who visited his office at AIM to ask for advice. My dad was amazed at this Fil-Chinese for his guts. He actually had the nerve to challenge Colgate and Unilever. He was the former supplier of aluminum tubes for the big toothpaste manufacturers. But he was practically booted out of the business when the big two decided to go for the new plastic tubes that the US was using. Left with workers and a manufacturing plant, he prayed and decided to go into toothpaste manufacturing as well. He went to Japan to buy his toothpaste formula and technology and of all names, was going to name his brand, Happee. I remember my dad grinning, saying that this guy named Cecilio told him that the direction and name of the toothpaste “came from God.” So there was no way he could fail. My dad didn’t tell me what kind of advice he gave him, but I do know that shortly after the brand was launched, Happee had tied up with the PBA as the official Asian Games sponsor and then signed up an unknown starlet named Ruffa Gutierrez for a song. The rest is a Happee history that has become a favorite business fodder in conferences.

I always looked forward to our rides to the office and back home. There were so many stories.

About nine years ago, I told my dad that we should share his stories and marketing “remedies” to a bigger audience. I pitched the idea for this column to the Inquirer and we’ve been blessed to share MarketingRx to you, our readers for the past 430 plus weeks.

As Dr. Ned’s son and writing partner, I’ve been the one who has been most blessed. Co-writing, researching, and taking turns at producing a column every Friday for the past 430 weeks with my dad have been quite a unique ride. It’s an education that no course at AIM or anywhere else can replicate.

Dad, as you celebrate your 71st birthday this July 4th, just wanted to let you know that I thank God that I have you as my marketing mentor—and my father.

Happy birthday Dad. I love you!

If you would like to greet Dr. Ned happy birthday please send him a note on his Facebook fanpage (search Dr. Ned Roberto) or e-mail us at [email protected] or [email protected]. (And yes, you can send us the usual MarketingRx questions that you may have.) God bless!