The Marketing Carbuncle
Seth Godin succinctly raises the hoary chestnut of the role of marketing. According the him, senior marketers must be architects:
"What does an architect do? She reinvents the very nature of what's delivered and how it is delivered. She reimagines the inputs and outputs of the organization, as well as its story, to create an engine of revenue that grows while benefitting all sides. The reason we hear about google and apple and jetblue and starbucks all the time is that these are poster children for re-architecting existing business models into something very different. The marketing is not slapped on. Starbucks is not Dunkin Donuts with a clever sign. If Dunkin Donuts goes out to hire a "senior marketer" and gives that person traditional senior marketer duties, not much is going to change...."
I think it's a great analogy...for bad marketing.
Yes, architects design environments for internal and external stakeholders - for the world to see, and for employees to live in.
Yes, architects seek to influence through a combination of functional design and emotional persuasion.
Yes, architects imagine dramatic solutions to pressing problems
But how much architecture is really Built to Last
How many genuinely consult with future users?
How many think in terms of centuries, rather than decades?
How many truly add to the value of the resources they consume?
Too many brands have been undermined by would-be architects, when scaffolders and structural engineers were all that was required.
As Prince Charles, might have put it: overambitious marketing can be "a monstrous carbuncle, on the face of a much loved, and elegant friend."
Editor
Comments
I think that it depends largely on what kind of marketing is required in the organisation or indeed in the role itself. Not trying to fit too many dancing angels on a pinhead, but in a world of significantly greater consumer choice, indeed impatience, any consumer facing marketing role has to be very precisely defined. For instance, is the Marketing Director’s role about redefining the consumer proposition, creating new mixes with supporting consumer communication, designing enticing packaging etc? Or is the role of the Marketing Director to take proven mixes with great communication from elsewhere and to roll them out through first class consumer activation? In some organisations this distinction does not exist, and may not even apply; but in many FMCG organisations it does already and will be even more relevant in the near future.
The importance of understanding the distinction from a hiring perspective is pretty obvious – it is still about getting the right person for the job. The importance from the perspective of the newly appointed Mkt.Dir., or the lucky one sitting on the exciting new job offer, is more subtle.
That role as Marketing Director of a Euro500m company sounds great; but how much brand development work am I going to do? Conversely, Brand Director of a Euro500m brand sounds great; but how far will I get to see my work implemented in the market place?
Indeed, which of these two different kinds of roles am I best suited for given my experience and capability?
And then, what do I do in the early days in either of these in order to create longer term success.
It begs the question of how to structure marketing roles most effectively in any large, maybe matrixed organisation; and then of how to define the capabilities, skills, attitudes that fit best with the different roles. Which is a very BIG QUESTION!
For now, it is important to recognise and accept that organisational design around marketing roles is more complicated than it used to be and that both recruitment and personal career planning must therefore become more precise and insightful.
Posted by: David Thomas | January 5, 2006 5:30 PM