This is not the best day being in New York City with the big snow storm and everything was messy. It’s kind of reminding me of the state of marketing today. It was a typical work day packed with meetings back-to-back. Some how we managed to spend some eating out with our friend Jason. We've also met with some great people and have good discussions about some stratetic partnerships opportunties. We ended up eating at the Fatty Crab (Chelsea meets Malaysia) and quite honest curry crab is not really my favorite.
The state of marketing today? Marketing is often misunderstood (and still much so today) and narrowly associated with tactical advertising or direct marketing opportunities, it should really be about the organizational culture focused on creating and delivering customer value; through its business strategy, mandates of growth, customer segmentation, targeting and positioning; and with its tactical dimensions of communications and promotional management including pricing and most of all providing inspiration to customers and make the product you’re selling more desirable.
It is not difficult to understand why it is seen as tactical when In its earliest organizational forms, beginning in late 20s, marketing had developed in field sales support and as product and brand-management activities in consumer packaged-goods companies. Marketing research is also seen as part of the marketing function. 30 years later marketing has grown up to become a full-blown function in its own right. With the rise of strategic planning in the 70s marketing management became strategic and intertwined with business strategy. Another 15 years ago, with the Internet it brances out into technology-based marketing (CRM for the lack of a better word). It is not being disrupted again by social media and influenced by a new customer-centric and communities-centric focus. Almost all marketers need to go back to school and relearn what works. Ad agencies are scrambling to deal with the change. The biggest argument remains unchanged: Should marketing be focused on the long-term (building a brand) or short-term (driving sales)? There is always a view that the most important spending represents long-term investments in the growth and future profitability of the brand/business…so called the competitive advantage. Unfortunately marketing is often treated as an expense item. The emphasis on quarterly earnings per share to long-term business building can only come from top management. Those short-termism are hurting brands and companies’ long term competitive advantages. In the current economic climate, no question that this has become a common debate among senior marketing executives.
There is also a question of how the ad agencies (as an inudstry) are prepared to deal with the sea change. It is beyond reconfiguring service offerings or simplye cross office integrations. They need to rethink individual roles, culture and organiztional form. I have lots of ideas what is needed to make it work.
