Many Leaders Don’t Value Marketing: Why?


by Kimberly Whitler
Republished from Forbes, October 15, 2017

I was having lunch with Jen Pike, founder of Rockethouse Consulting, when we began lamenting a somewhat popular point of view among a segment of executives — that marketers don’t matter anymore. There are many arguments we’ve heard: “the CEO is the Chief Marketer,” “every employee is a marketer,” “marketing wastes money,” “I see no value in marketing,” “marketing is all luck so why spend money on it,” and so on.

Pike has an interesting perspective on why she believes this is wrong. Below are some highlights from the discussion.

Kimberly Whitler: Does marketing (and do marketers) matter?

Jen Pike: When people argue that marketing doesn’t matter, they usually have a different meaning of what marketing is than those who understand how marketing contributes to firm performance. Marketing should be about defining a unique position in the marketplace that allows you to charge the most money you can for the services and products you provide. Those who often misunderstand marketing believe that it is only about advertising campaigns and media plans. I’d argue that marketing is essentially the core of business strategy because it is about understanding the consumer and creating products and services that the target is willing to buy from a brand they feel emotionally connected to and willing to trust.

Whitler: Can’t a non-marketer do this?

Pike: You need somebody who is trained, practiced, and skilled at looking holistically at the marketplace, understanding the consumer, and then creating unique opportunities based on this understanding. It needs to be led by a strategic marketer who can then develop coherent, unified plans that synchronize across the enterprise. Can a non-marketer do this? In some cases, yes. But those who are great at this most likely either come from marketing or consulting—where they had positions defining AND delivering against a growth strategy. You need somebody who has experience weaving the many unique talents, skills and expertise that exist across the enterprise into an experience for specific consumers that is coherent and compelling in the marketplace.

Whitler: An argument I recently heard from a CEO is that he has brought in a number of CMOs who haven’t created value for the firm. What do you think about this?

Pike: This is part of the reason why some people see no value in marketing. If you hire somebody who doesn’t have the training, experience, or knowledge to create a distinctive positioning and then develop the programs to activate it, then they will fail. In this case, it isn’t that marketing is useless. It is that the individual leading the marketing effort isn’t the right person for the job. We don’t want to conflate the two.

Whitler: Why do you think companies make mistakes in hiring the wrong person?

Pike: There is a misunderstanding around competency. There is a difference between being strategically capable, creatively capable and executionally excellent (see article on the differences in types of marketers here). Depending upon a person’s background, they are likely going to have one, maybe two, areas they are stronger in. Generally, companies don’t hire a strategy firm to develop a creative campaign; nor should they hire an advertising agency to handle strategy. The same goes for hiring decisions for CMOs. A company doesn’t want to hire someone who is a strong marketing program executor when their biggest need is a strategy for sustainable growth. They may get more attention, but not a turn around.

Whitler: Do you have an example of how this works?

Pike: I personally learned this lesson and I’ll never make this mistake again. I was asked to look at a brand that had been losing share for 10 years; the direction was to evaluate the business and to come back with an ad campaign in 3 weeks to fix it. Knowing what I now know, I would have rejected the timeframe and the scope of the project. First, you can’t fix a decade-long problem in 3 weeks. Second, the problem was more than an ad campaign. It required a clarification in strategic positioning that would have meant a shift in pricing, packaging, product, distribution, promotion—and yes, advertising. But advertising was a small part of what needed fixing.

Whitler: Interesting. It sounds like many leaders conflate advertising with marketing and think that advertising can solve poor strategy.

Pike: Exactly. The above belief permeates non-marketers. They believe that the silver bullet is an ad campaign, or that the only contribution they can expect from a marketer is an ad campaign. In this case, fixing the brand decline required a shift in strategy and plans—of which advertising was at the end of the process.

Whitler: What advice would you give to marketers who are struggling with C-level leaders who don’t fully understand the value of marketing?

Pike: I think there are two things that can help. First, marketers need to be very clear and gain agreement on decision-rights; which decisions are theirs to make, and what are the decisions for others to make. This is really an outcome of a good role discussion. Once you know what decisions you, as a marketer, get to make in your current company, never, ever fold or shy away from those decisions. Make sure you are making them each and every time, especially the tough ones. If someone else tries to make the decision for you, push back. Second, use your tools with discipline and show your work every single time. As we know, there are proven tools for marketing strategy and execution. Educate your colleagues (even those senior to you) about what tools you are using and why. Then every single time you are sharing a decision or presenting an idea, anchor that work back to the tools and analysis that got you there. The more discipline you show, the better chance you will be understood as a professional of a specific discipline called marketing, not just the girl that zestfully presents this year’s promotional calendar.


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