Download Marketing: a discipline in crisis?

Executive
Summary
Marketing: a discipline in crisis?
The entire world of marketing is changing. It used to be that a
company could rise to the top of its industry and deliver
superior shareholder returns by doing one thing well. Not
anymore. Coupled to this, businesses around the world, both
large and small, cannot ignore the impact that the global
economy is having on their performance.
As a result marketing is becoming more important as organizations
around the world strive to develop products and services that appeal
to their customers and aim to differentiate their offerings in the
increasingly-crowded global marketplace. As a result, more and more
organizations around the world are choosing to adopt a marketing-led
philosophy to enable them to win market share and capture and retain
the hearts and minds of prospective and existing customers.
In
the face of growing customer choice and
market transparency, the shift in marketing in
recent years has been profound. Firstly in the era
of mass marketing, the primary source of value
for most companies was their products or brands;
today, value is moving to the customer interface.
Secondly, marketing’s focus, formerly on
advertising-based brand development, has
shifted to “below the line” operations capable of
driving short-term, measurable financial returns.
Third,
companies’
sales
efforts,
once
characterized as “one size fits all,” are
transforming to meet customer demands for
unique solutions and value-added services.
don’t know what their marketing spending is
achieving.”
And so it is an increasing concern – whilst
companies recognize they need good marketing,
many simply do not trust those they have hired to
do the job, not only because everyone thinks they
know what ‘marketing’ is, from the Finance
Director to the IT Manager, but also because
marketers have a credibility problem – because
of the creativity that is their lifeblood they often
run counter to the discipline required to excel in
other parts of the organization.
Perhaps not surprisingly therefore, marketing is
being embraced increasingly in board rooms
across the world. The position of the ‘chief
marketing officer’ (CMO) is gaining currency. The
marketer would therefore seemingly be well
positioned to be at the heart of driving forward
the business agenda.
So, as the CMO position is becoming more
common, so are its perils. The CMO is deemed to
be among the most hazardous positions in the
modern firm, with CMO tenure averaging only 23
months — less than half the tenure of most CEOs.
Quite simply there is a disconnect between the
Chief Executive and CMO. The sad fact is that
many CMO’s focus on the issues that do not keep
their CEOs awake at night.
But as always, with added responsibilities
become added challenges. Today’s marketers are
having a hard time keeping up. In fact the
marketer is in crisis! And if recent research
undertaken by Deloitte is anything to go by then
the marketer needs to wake up to the changing
world.
And it is this disconnect that is also causing
immense frustration over the role and
performance of marketing which is permeating
down through the marketing function and the
people operating within it.
Perhaps the major reason the marketer is not
appreciated by senior leadership is his or her
inability to justify their return on investment.
“Stop telling me about awareness” say the CEO
to his CMO, “What about the revenue?”
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1
Executive Summary | Marketing
As Distinguished Professor Philip Kotler – widely
regarded as the father of modern marketing – has
stated, “It is no secret that marketing
organizations are under pressure. Chief executive
officers
are
growing
impatient
with
marketing…they feel that they get accountability
for their investments in finance, production,
information technology, even purchasing, but
Executive
Summary
“Marketing is about
building new businesses,
finding the white space,
and leading the integration
across the organization with
sales, finance, personnel, IT
and R&D.”
So, what of the marketer of today? How do we
ensure that marketers are not left behind in
controlling the future of the marketing agenda
and are able to rise through their career? It is
clear that marketers cannot concern themselves
anymore simply with brand identity guidelines,
good television commercials, short term
promotions and rising awareness scores.
Marketing is about building new businesses,
finding the white space, and leading the
integration across the organization with sales,
finance, personnel, IT and R&D.
We need to radically re-think the way in which the
marketer is trained, developed, represented and
supported, at each and every stage of their
career. It’s a given that the marketer needs to
have a thorough knowledge of the technical
aspects of marketing. But, in order to compete
effectively in the global marketplace, and to
succeed in their chosen career-path, they
increasingly need to be more effective in
speaking the language of business if they are to
be taken more seriously by their peers, and the
Board.
today’s challenging global marketplace and look
for new and innovative ways to win market share,
there has never been a better time to be a
marketer. And whilst it is an exciting time to be a
marketer the challenges are only just beginning.
Those marketers that succeed in the future will be
those that are best able to combine both a global
awareness of business with a local perspective,
that are able to galvanize the power of
collaboration whilst being resolutely individual,
that can capture best practice and transfer it into
positive action. And above all can demonstrate
their value to the business and their impact on
the bottom-line.
It’s time for a brand new world. It’s time for a
change. And that time is now.
April 2007.
Darrell Kofkin is Chief Executive of Global
Marketing Network, the globally-focused
marketing association for today’s marketing and
business professionals.
To become a member of Global Marketing
Network please visit www.gmnhome.com. You
can also have your say and respond to Darrell at :
http://intouch.emeraldinsight.com/DarrellK/we
blog/archive/2008/02/
Today’s marketer needs to think global and act
local, to lead by example, to be a great team
player yet independently-minded, a creative
thinker who understands how to interpret and act
on data, a strategist, a tactician, a communicator
and a born networker all-in-one! Marketers have
to be capable of applying both 'left' and 'right'
brain thinking.
Executive Summary | Marketing
Marketers need to speak the language of
business and encourage their peers across
business to speak the language of marketing!
Marketers need to have a wider understanding of
the needs of business and develop the necessary
skills and abilities to drive forward the marketing
agenda in alignment with the organization’s
broader vision.
With organizations large and small, global and
local, increasingly looking for people who are
fully-equipped to enable them to succeed in
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
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