Marketing departments getting ‘pushed in the corner’
Marketing has dropped off many companies’ agendas, with marketing directors pushed into communications roles instead of being part of the business strategy, industry leaders have warned.
Panellist at Mumbrella’s Question Time, Peter McDonald MD of pitch consultancy Agency Register, said that for too many companies, such as major retailers, marketing has “become marginalised” and it is now simply about “getting out the collateral and the ads”.
“People’s skills have been dulled down to just implementing, rather than being business builders.”
He added however that Amanda Johnston-Pell, executive director of Telstra’s brands and marketing communications group, was one good example of how a marketer can affect a business and knowing to converse with a company’s chief financial officer.
Meanwhile, Michelle Hutton Hill & Knowlton CEO, said one of the biggest changes in recent years has been companies recognising the importance of “reputation”, with many of them now merging the management of their brand and their reputation – a trend that is proving to be a boon for PR agencies.
Hutton said that in a recent conversation with the CEO of an ad agency, he asked her advice on how to strengthen his agency’s relationship with a client.
“He said to me ‘we are stuck in the marketing department, but you have talks with all the different stakeholders in the business’,” she said.
“Stop having communications conversations with clients and [instead] have business conversations,” she advised.
Craig Davis, Publicis Mojo co-chairman and creative director said if marketing and reputation are in fact merging, it “opens up more opportunity” for agencies.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Completely agree with this assertion, and it really is a natural evolution of marketing and communications. It makes sense to ensure you are communicating with all stakeholders (internally and externally) across the board, with brand and business objectives.
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…
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Agree marketing has been relegated to communications, which ultimately becomes ads and collateral. We all know they are increasingly ineffective tools to achieve business goals.
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.
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I believe that Communications, when utilized correctly, can benefit the business. In my mind and current practice, it means all facets of corporate communications are handled by the team – advertising, PR, media and marketing. A whole team speaking from one script (8 times out of 10 at the very least)
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It seems counter-intuitive that things are trending in this direction when there is an increased need for all functions of business to become more effective at telling their story, listening and engaging.
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.
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This blog post, by Randall Rothenberg over at iab, complements this discussion nicely;
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?
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I am confused by this.
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.
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Has marketing been marginalized? That’s easy to answer — what gets cut first when times are tight? If marketing were more critical, it would enjoy more protection during tough times.
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.
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Marketing Myopia, by Levitt…
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…
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Nobody puts baby in the corner!
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