Ghana has failed to market its potential in the best way possible and to compete favorably in the global arena. This was a unanimous observation by Speakers at the historic World Marketing Forum which is currently underway in Ghana. The Forum, organized by the Global Marketing Network in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana is to provide the platform for the best marketing brains across the world to explore the latest marketing principles and to proffer workable and tested marketing solutions to global problems. Mr. Martyn Mensah, President of the Global Marketing Network, Ghana, and Managing Director of the Kasapreko Company Ltd said Ghana must evolve new strategies and proceed from being local champions and become global players. He said the choice of Accra as venue for the World Marketing Forum is loud recognition of the role and importance of Ghana in global issues. Ghana, he stressed has woefully failed to recognise the huge and intrinsic power of the local market and warned “if we don’t take advantage of our market, somebody else will.” For 18 million Ghanaians said to own mobile phones out of a total population of 24 million, Mr Mensah stated the Ghanaian market provides huge potential for marketers to take advantage of. He charged marketers to observe and understand the dynamics of the Ghanaian market which he described as democratic, broad based, low income but economically active. He said no country has developed by using foreign prescriptions, and admonished government officials, policy makers, marketers to look within for customized, home grown solutions to problems. Another Speaker at the Forum, Prof. Stephen Adei, past president of the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana and a former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration is convinced good marketing skills can solve all problems in the country. Marketing, he noted is a well known principle, yet so few understand its use and its power. He said marketing is most often confused with advertising and economics thereby losing the very essence of the subject. With a good marketing principle we can change the image of a product, an individual and a country, he observed. Citing his own personal experience, Prof Adei said he took over GIMPA at a time when it was about to be ‘auctioned’ and within few years the institution was raking in super normal profits. He said the prospects of Ghana breaking into the newly industrialized country are indisputable but said “the biggest challenge is how we market ourselves.” “Ghana is a good country, good people and has a good future,” he stated.