it appears as if the profession has been so myopic that it has failed to practice what it has preached. Each busniess unit must strive to maintain its relevance and be prepared to re-define its raison d’être constantly… failing which, it becomes redundant…

I sense it is back to basics, where Marketing needs to discover and articualte its unique and valuable proposition – not to consumers and agencies, but to CEO’s and Boards… until then competing business units (for budget allocations) will rightly continue asimilaing marketing’s suposed activities under their umbrella

Is Marketing an ‘activity’ or an ‘attitude’?… if it is an activity, I propose that it is no longer a viable, stand alone business and it should be incorporated into more ‘progressive’ units.

Bring on the Marketing Fight Back…

A better question to ask is, “Why has marketing been marginalized?” The answer, in my opinion, is that it operates on assumptions that are irrelevant to the rest of the organization. Ask anyone in customer service what is the firm’s so-called “positioning.” Ask anyone in fulfillment what the “brand personality” is. Even ask someone in accounting what the “brand equity” is. Chances are, they will not know. If it is not relevant to the rest of the organization or important to the customer, then it shouldn’t be important to marketing. As long as marketing keeps staring at its brand navel it will forever be marginalized. Measurement would go a long way toward at least slowing the slide toward marginalization.

Why would marketers have moved to this alleged weakened position?

Nothing has fundamentally changed about who does product development, why then would marketing be marginalised to Marcomms?

Marcomms prevails where product sits internationally normally.

I would like to see some data showing this is the case and reasons behind the shift.

http://is.gd/54ox6

My question is, have marketers been put in this corner by others, or have their own approaches and mindsets painted themselves into this corner?

Marketing and PR needs to be embedded within all aspects (or departments) of business so that they can add value by enabling effective communication with stakeholders.

There doesn’t seem to be much evidence to suggest that business leaders in Australia are recognising the need to flatten oragnisational structures to enable more human, transparent and open communications.

Marketers need to step up their skills and influence business strategy. In my experience working in online businesses, the interaction of audience, reach and distribution strategies with business objectives is critical. But agree, the influence has to happen at the top.

The cost benefits of this approach are also significant. Ensuring your PR/ad agencies are aligned, and that all communications (even marketing) come from the one department really does make sense.

However, I don’t think this means they should be pushed out of the business decision-making…