I love marketing with a passion, and always have. I’m utterly convinced of the importance of marketing in driving massive value for businesses, so when I see headlines which comment on the lack of marketers on Executive Boards at most of the largest companies in the world, it does make me wonder why. Why do less than 4% of companies have marketers on the board? Why is it that marketers are not represented at the highest levels of our companies and what, if anything, should be done about it?
Why should marketers be present on every board?
Before we go any further, just a sense-check – do boards need marketers? Absolutely. Marketing is business. Marketing helps answer all of the key questions that drive a business’ strategy. Who are our customers? Why are we targeting this group? What is it that they need, that we could provide? Why is it that they are not using, buying or stocking our product? Does our offer fit their needs, and can we profitably do that in the short, medium and long term? All of those are marketing questions, and all of them lie at the heart of any business case that might lead to strategy.
So with all of that valuable stuff lying within the marketing remit, why then aren’t marketing directors a shoe-in for the C-Suite?
Marketers need to walk the talk
Alas, too many Marketing Directors and CMOs aren’t’ focusing their time on these critical questions. Too many marketers are busying themselves on only one part of the customer experience – the consumer. Too many are focusing too much on one part of the marketing mix – communications. Too many marketing functions are actually acting much closer to “Consumer Communications Departments”. Don’t get me wrong, consumer communications is critical – but on its own it isn’t C-Suite worthy.
Marketers need to step up and address bigger, broader questions. They need to recognize that marketing is more than the marketing function (as Peter Drucker puts it, ‘business is only two things – marketing and innovation). ‘The Customer’ is more than just the consumer: there are shoppers too, and retailers. Marketing leaders must resist the temptation to treat shopper and trade marketing as somehow secondary to the rest of the target market. Consumer goods companies have three customers and marketers must win with all if they are to win at all. A Total Marketing approach is needed.
Marketers needs to talk business (and cut the jargon and nonsense)
As I was reflecting on the lack of marketers of executive boards, and the reasons for their absence, I came across a super marketing quote. “people don’t buy products; they take actions that help advance their own personal meta story.” (note the rest of the article is pretty good, but I found this quote particularly vomit-inducing!) It is nonsense like this that immediately alienates the rest of the business and immediately reinforces the flaky, not-of-the-commercial world image that marketers often have. I’m sorry, but no! I’m all for brand stories, and fully believe in stories as a way of enhancing customer experience, but no. I don’t know about you, but I rarely hear shoppers saying ‘Hmm – Dettol floor cleaner its more expensive than private label but as I said to my husband only yesterday, you can’t put a price on advancing your own personal meta story”. I’m not even sure what a personal meta story is!
Marketers need to ‘play nice’ with other functions
When I meet with people from other functions, and I say I am a marketer, I often see eyes roll. Sales, supply chain, finance: pretty much everyone has a disparaging view of marketers. Jargon, brow-beating, a complete lack of interest in the needs of others, a lack of comprehension of how a business works – all are criticisms I’ve heard levelled at marketers. Not all, of course, but if marketers are to lead the business’ marketing agenda, rather than merely the activities of their own function, then this has to change. True marketing leaders who own the customer relationship and experience are in a unique place to lead the business: to rally the business behind a single, customer-oriented goal. To do this marketers must have more than smarts and vision – they have to connect internally within the business too.
Marketers need to recognize the difference between the ‘marketing’ and the ‘marketing function’ – and lead the entire business towards more focus on its customers. Targeting customers, understanding customers, enhancing the experience that brands give those customers: all of these things lie at the heart of business success, yet achieving them requires more than just marketers. By embracing and owning customers, rather than just consumers, marketers can step into a true business leadership role, and that is where the keys to the C-Suite lie. If you’d like to know more about Total Marketing – check out this book.
