For the last couple of days I have been having an interesting time digging around in the corporate marketing sphere … and one of the things that has surprised me is the lack of cross-over between the client and agency sides — especially considering how closely the two must work to build and grow brands. It strikes me that there are plenty of things that the client and agency sides can learn from each other … and then I found an article over at Strategy + Business that put a smile on my face.
This article by Gregor Harter, Edward Landry, and Andrew Tipping on the “Complete Marketer” talk about the six emerging themes that are occupying the top CMOs. These are:
- Putting the consumer at the heart of marketing
- Making marketing accountable
- Embracing the challenges of new media
- Recognising the new organizational imperative
- Living a new agency paradigm
- Remaining adaptable
From a social media perspective, some of this feels old hat … but to those client-side folks who do the hard yards everyday trying to keep marketing at the top of the corporate agenda, just picking one or two could represent an entire year’s work. Of course, rapid change is easy in an organisation of one, but transforming a business, the employees, shareholders and partner networks can require a significant investment. It is not JUST about reimagining the CMO, it is about changing the way that business does business.
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It’s an interesting one, Gavin. I’m a firm believer that if you put any three business people in a room now, you will get three different opinions on what “marketing” is. Advertising? Sales? Customer Experience? Brand management? Oh, and by the way, is that talking about managing the way someone experiences doing business with you, or is that making sure the logo is not too close to the border of the newsletter?
Websites are another good example: It took a long time to work out that it should be a marketing responsibility, rather than an IT responsibility.
Maybe the exercise of “re-defining” the role of marketing will achieve what hasn’t been achieved before, and that is defining what its role is for all to agree.