Nick Wreden of Fusion Brands and the author of ProfitBrand: How to Increase the Profitability, Accountability and Sustainability of Brands offers his views on contemporary marketing in an article for Strategy + Business. Here’s the opening – it is well worth a read:
Ten years ago, typical CEOs wanted “creativity” or “impact” from marketing. Today, they demand accountability. How well marketing responds to this demand will determine whether that function gets absorbed into other departments, like sales or customer service, or whether it changes to assume a strategic seat at the table, just as purchasing and shipping evolved into supply chain management.
The strategic value of marketing is well recognized. It is critical to launching new products, ensuring customer retention, battling competition, and growing sales. But, at the same time, marketing gets no respect. In downturns, it is the first function frog-marched to the guillotine. New products are “thrown over the wall” at marketing with little warning and, much worse, little input from marketing itself. It’s not surprising that sales and finance spawn many more chief executives than marketing does.
That said, the marketing profession has brought its reputation on itself. Too often, marketing insists on dancing to the beat of its own drummer. It pays homage to creativity or pursues the holy grail of the “big idea” when the rest of the organization runs on data. Like an untrained puppy, it chases the latest fads, like the importance of smells to branding.
Understandably, CEOs are less interested in smells than they are in answers to the question, What are we getting for our money?
The complete article is here.
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