The history of brands offers some fascinating stories for marketing geeks. But the networked age of the Internet and growing consumer concerns about societal and environmental issues have made the latest chapters more dramatic than anticipated. In this article we begin to explore why, for a successful outcome to their story, brands may be advised to learn from their past to create a better sequel for all of us.
"Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department." – David Packard, co-founder, Hewlett-Packard. I've seen the quote above attributed to a few people but Dave Packard seems to be most commonly associated with it. To be honest it's the sentiment which matters the most. A long time ago, a former boss patiently explained to me why, as marketers, everyone wanted to do our jobs and would happily take them from us, if we didn't ensure that marketing stayed within the marketing department. Of course, it was a myopic point of view and a counterproductive one too. In the subsequent years I soon learned that the greatest influence, any marketing leader can have, is the ability to involve, engage and secure commitment from teams across the organisation. But for a marketing leader to successfully orchestrate constructive collaboration, like the conductor of a symphony, they are likely to need support from their corporate patron- the CEO. In some companies, Marketing extending its influence beyond its job-titles can cause some resentment. Particularly if the task is approached with colonising zeal by an ego-driven marketing head. This is why I believe that it's important for Chief Executives to take a viewpoint that they are also "Chief Brand Officers": Encouraging their teams to engage around a common set of principles, which define the perception of the company to its customers and prospects and align with the brand's aspirations. This is essential to values being actively lived within an organisation, ensuring don't merely exist as noble words on a forgotten presentation slide. Thinking like a Chief Brand Officer might sound trite, for a serious minded CEO, but not taking brand responsibilities seriously risks millions of pounds worth of marketing investment being devalued overnight. In the digital age reputational damage from poor customer service or perceived corporate hypocrisy can spread fast, far and wide. For example, if your CMO positions your company as the "friendly bank", but the Head of Operations hires a demotivated, poorly trained, underpaid and outsourced army of customer service call-handlers, hidden behind an impenetrable digital call answering system...well it doesn't take a genius to see the issues that could arise. So being a CEO with a Chief Brand Officer mindset doesn't just mean picking the colours for a new logo. It means ensuring values, people and processes all align and enlisting your head of marketing to help make it happen. Who You Hire Matters CEOs should think carefully about the nature of the people that they hire into their senior marketing roles. In theory, marketing leaders are often best placed to choreograph senior leaders in a coordinated dance partnership between customer centricity and profitability. However, this requires a Chief Marketing Officer who doesn't just have fabulous marketing skills but the requisite humility, and deftness of touch, to influence a diverse set of functional leaders across the organisation. I've often summed this up as the "dual-faced' marketing leader: someone who applies the same rigour to their internal segmentation, targeting and positioning as they do for external communication. This isn't just idealistic puff either, a few years ago I participated in the Marketing 2020 initiative (a name which sounded forward thinking at the time but has dated quickly). This involved extensive international research with the objective of identifying the common factors characterising high performing marketing organisations. The key findings were published by the Harvard Business Review under the cover story "The Ultimate Marketing Machine" . The primary finding was that high-performing marketing leaders don’t just align their department’s activities with company strategy, they actively engage in creating it and co-ordinate its deployment across the company. Key Alliances Another thing for CEOs to consider, when choosing a corporate choreographer as Chief Marketing Officer, is how the key alliances should play out between marketing and other functions. Marketing & Finance are often thought of as diametrically opposed disciplines. The stereotype is that Finance tries to keep costs under control, whilst marketing wants to speculate in a vague hope it will accumulate...or at least accumulate some awards, articles in the trade press and nice lunches (paid for by the agency). Of course, the modern reality, at least in well run businesses, is quite different. Many finance teams anchor their goals to the principles of "financial planning and analysis" (FP&A), a natural conduit to the market and customer orientations of the best marketers. The key to making this relationship work is having leaders in the respective roles who are able to build mutual respect and take the time to understand each others language and motivations- motivations which should, of course, be shared; a desire to effectively manage resources to ensure the survival of the business today and sustainable growth into the future. Marketing & HR tends to be an easier relationship but again, it takes work to create a perfect marriage. At Brand Pharmacists we believe the strongest brands are always built from the inside out. If your internal reality clashes with your external positioning the dissonance can devastate companies. Our strongly held belief in building brand cultures is why we have experienced senior HR and talent specialists on the team. They aren't there just to manage our payroll, but to support our clients deliver meaningful change, rather than superficial value statements to paint on the office walls. When people, positioning, purpose and goals are aligned, they can light a brand spirit, a spirit which shines brightly from the heart of the business, beaming like a lighthouse, through the fog of the marketplace, a shining light for joyful new customers to bathe in as their cares evaporate....ok, I got a bit carried away there, but you get my point. Marketing and Sales are often confused as one and the same, which isn't the end of the world in since they should both be focused on sustainable, profitable business growth. In reality this relationship can get feisty, particularly if sales targets result in a prioritisation of short term sales revenue over longer term, sustainable profitability. Or indeed if marketers forget their primary job is to increase sales, rather than to associate themselves with whichever noble purpose is fashionable, at any given point in time. Recruiting a commercially savvy marketing leader and a progressively minded sales head can go some way to making this partnership be a little more harmonious and a great deal more productive. A little interdepartmental friction keeps both sides on their toes- all good relationships involve a few arguments- but ultimately companies need commercial leadership partners whose relationship will stand the test of time- or at least until the end of the sales period. And last, but by no means least, Marketing & Customer Service. It often comes as a surprise to outsiders that many customer service leaders are more focussed on logistics, process and cost-containment than they are on delivering exceptional service. At least one large business I know of, that uses customer service in its consumer communications, refers internally to the team responsible for delivering that very service as "Customer Operations". Customer Service teams will typically have some form of NPS (net promoter score) or CSAT (customer service satisfaction) targets to aim for, but generally 'customer operations" is in fact a more accurate description of what they do. Yet having a customer-centric brand proposition counts for little, if it’s not delivered by the people most likely to engage with customers at their time of need. That's particularly true in businesses with high-value products that are more likely to require support- such as consumer electronics, automotive and travel. As an example, a mobile phone manufacturer I studied a few years ago could directly trace its sales demise to a product which sold an incredible number of units, an exceptionally high proportion of which went wrong and for which customer support was almost non-existent. So creating an environment, where marketing and customer service can deliver customers a seamless impression of the company, can be absolutely vital to realise the long term sales potential delivery of a brand promise realised through customer experience and subsequent recommendation. In Summary My view, of course is that Dave was right. Marketing is far too important to be left to the marketing department. However, to realise the growth potential of successful, effective marketing, companies need to find a way to align their functions around common, customer-centric yet commercially viable values. This starts at the top, with the CEO actings as a Chief Brand Officer, because building successful brands requires more than just fancy logos. Companies which succeed hire diverse leaders, with the ability to complement each others' strengths and align for shared success. Leaders with a strong marketing background are well placed to be the maestros that CEOs appoint to conduct the corporate orchestra: delivering harmonic tunes to delight target audiences and bring them back for more. Achieving a common understanding, within an organisation, of its guiding values and principles is more important than the background of the people you choose to make it happen. The crucial thing is that it happens and the people you select have the collective mindset to ensure that it does. Of course, all this is easier to say than do, but the Brand Pharmacists are here to help good businesses rise to the opportunity that marketing beyond the marketing team presents.