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November 18, 2004
Marketing as under-rated
Another study here, this time from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and Booz Allen Hamilton, which surveyed 370 marketing and non-marketing executives.
Despite that three-quarters felt that the importance of marketing in their company had increased, many marketers who responded apparently felt that their role in marketing the companies is not getting the respect they deserve.
For example:
Few marketing executives ever make CEO. Vice presidents of marketing have a notoriously short shelf life. According to executive recruiting firm Spencer Stuart, the average CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) tenure lasts only 23 months. In the food industry, tenure is only 12 months, barely enough time for business cards to dry. Famed branding observer Don E. Schulz observes that "the marketing function is being pushed lower and lower in the corporate hierarchy."
However, it seems that the marketers have only themselves to blame:
[T]he Conference Board found that the top four chief executive challenges for 2004 were top-line growth (52%), corporate agility (42%), customer loyalty and retention (41%), and innovation (31%). By contrast, Booz Allen Hamilton found that marketing executives were focused on branding guidelines (83%), counseling divisions (52%), best-practice sharing (52%), and developing capabilities (47%).
Somehow I'm struck by the fact that the CEO concerns should be the marketing concerns - while the marketers were apparently tying themselves over issues of the sales and personal departments.
I've remarked before on this issue of bad marketing structure in business, as here: Lack of communication loses sales
Nick Wreden at Fusionbrand takes the issue further into a proper rant: How Will Marketing Stay Relevant?
If branding is defined in terms of being able to sense, deliver and capture customer value, then marketing executives must have working knowledge of supply chain, financial and product development management as well as ad and PR execution.
...
Marketing's original role, when it started being added to corporate organizational charts in the 1920s, was representing the customer. Marketing was supposed to be a stand-in for the customer, letting product development and other areas know exactly what customers wanted. It wasn't until the 1950s that the role changed to finding and selling the customer. Because they are the source of all profitability, nothing else is as important as customers to a company. If marketing wants to reverse its current dive into irrelevance, it needs to once again be seen as the "voice of the customer."
It'll be interesting to see how marketing develops as a discipline, especially with regards to the impact of the internet affecting marketing models.
Note: this article is also discussed here -
http://www.platinax.co.uk/community/thread1345.html
Posted by at November 18, 2004 01:18 PM
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