Marketing: A Discipline in Crisis?

Author: Darrell Kofkin, CEO, Global Marketing Network

First Published: March 2008

 
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 organisations 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 organisations 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.
 
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.
 
But as always, with added responsibilities come 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.  
 

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 don’t know what their marketing spending is achieving.” 

And so it is an increasing concern – whilst companies recognise 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 the creativity that is their lifeblood they often run counter to the discipline required to excel in other parts of the organization.

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 his CMO. The sad fact is that many CMO’s focus on the issues that do not keep their CEOs awake at night.
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?”

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 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.
 
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 organisation’s broader vision.
 
With organisations large and small, global and local, increasingly looking for people who are fully-equipped to enable them to succeed in 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 galvanise 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.
 
 
 
 
Darrell Kofkin is Chief Executive of Global Marketing Network, the globally-focussed 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 about at http://intouch.emeraldinsight.com/DarrellK/weblog/archive/2008/02/