First the bad news:  Only 18% of CEOs are “very satisfied” with their marketing organizations.  Yep, that’s saying 4 out of 5 CEOs lack confidence in their companies’ marketing people.

Now the good news:  Marketing can play a critical role in creating and harvesting a company’s cash flow – something every CEO wants.

So why the disconnect?  “A fundamental lack of communication between marketing and corporate leadership,” say authors Roy A. Young, Allen M. Weiss, and David W. Stewart, in their book “Marketing Champions:  Practical Strategies for Improving Marketing’s Power, Influence, and Business Impact.”

The book is an excellent text for marketers who desire to be – and to be considered — an influential, powerful, and critical part of their companies.  So many of the book’s concepts are a brilliant combination of profound and practical, I just had to share some of the key points.

The central premise of “Marketing Champions” is that marketers are due more respect and influence than most currently get. “In many organizations, marketing is underutilized.  We find marketing practitioners frustrated at not being able to make the essential contributions to their company’s success that they’re capable of – and that they’re ideally positioned to provide,” the authors posit.

So the book begins by outlining the myths about marketing which detract from company leaders’ understanding of how important marketing is to the organization – such as:

• “Marketing can’t develop well-informed action plans and programs because it can’t measure the results of those plans and programs in objective business terms.”
• “Marketing is all about advertising; therefore it’s important only for companies with large and discretionary advertising budgets.”

It then outlines a powerful tool for dispelling these myths:  language.  The authors contrast the words marketers usually use: segments, strategy, performance, image, positioning, brand equity, etc., with that of the rest of the executive committee, namely: assets, return on assets, velocity, leverage, shareholder value, etc.  “The more you can master and speak the language of business – including translating marketing terminology into commonly used business vocabulary – the more influence you’ll have…[and] The more actual, measurable value you’ll deliver for your company.”

Importantly, this book doesn’t suggest that simply by using the right words, you become a marketing champion.  On the contrary, it helps marketers understand the true business impact of what they’re doing – or what they should be doing – and how to communicate that impact effectively.

For example, what marketers call “brand extensions” are actually “returns on assets,” since they increase the value derived from an existing asset (the brand.)  Other returns on assets include efforts which increase cross-selling and up-selling – these important marketing activities enable companies to generate more value from its investments in acquiring customers.

The rest of the book is devoted to improving a marketer’s management of their internal constituencies.  Based on the notion of a marketing compass, the authors suggest that internal constituencies are four points/directions:

• managing north is about helping the CEO and CFO formulate and execute the company’s competitive strategy
• managing east is about busting silos and building bridges to sales for short-term results and R&D for long-term cash flow
• managing west is about identifying and seizing opportunities on the business frontier
• managing south is about building a “brand” for marketing that delivers unique, relevant, and sustainable value to the company

For each compass point, the book covers what is important to that constituency, how marketing can support and further its efforts, and how to demonstrate marketing’s value to it.  For example, the chapter, “Forge a Friendship with Your CFO,” shows what marketing’s role is in different business models and how to align your marketing activities behind the company’s cash-generation strategies.

The “installed base” business model is designed to maximize sales of base product at tight margins and sell consumable related products at high margins – think Gillette razors or HP printers.  Marketing’s role, therefore, is to build sales of the base product with an attractive quality or price to acquire users of compatible related products.  And key marketing activities like identifying the most receptive target segments and/or promoting product trial align with this strategy.

The book ends with a marketing leadership SWOT analysis – an inventory of sorts the reader can take to identify the changes that they need to take on a personal level to be an effective leader.

In this short post I can’t do justice to all the wisdom and practical advice contained in the book, so I strongly recommend you check out a copy.  I think you’ll find the inspiration and instruction necessary to become a Marketing Champion.

As the authors explain, “Marketing Champions anticipate changes in the business climate in which their companies operate.  They develop strategies for helping their organizations seize advantage of those changes, and they actively execute those strategies by winning the collaboration and cooperation of their bosses, peers, and employees…As a result, their organizations value their contribution and view them as essential leaders…”

(Full disclosure:  I have an Amazon Affiliate account, which means if you click on the above links and buy the book from Amazon, I get a commission – but trust me, I’m not planning on getting rich off the 4% per book rate, so accept this post only as what it is intended:  a sincere effort to share good stuff with you.)

Last week’s Ad Age featured an article called “Why It’s Time to Do Away With the Brand Manager.” The piece, and the Forrester research report which inspired it, argues for “changing the name ‘brand manager‘ to ‘brand advocate,’ and fundamentally changing marketer organizations in response to the onset of the digital age.” It reminded me of an article I wrote several years ago.

Outlining my thoughts on the key roles needed in any marketing department, I argued for the creation of a position called “brand operator” — someone whose role it is to drive brand operationalization. I thought I’d share with you the full article now. I considered updating it to acknowledge the new marketing and communication tools that have arisen since I wrote the piece, but the more I thought about it, I realized that wasn’t necessary. The tools may have changed, but I believe the fundamental marketing roles I outlined are evergreen:

A CMO’s Dream Team

The 1995-96’s Bulls. The 1992 Clinton election team. These are dream teams. Extraordinary individuals who come together to accomplish extraordinary results. Marketing, like sports or politics, requires highly skilled people at the top of their game, working together seamlessly to compete and win.

Chief marketing officers, like coaches and other leaders, who seek dream teams must assemble remarkable individuals to generate remarkable results. In the past, CMOs knew who they needed on their team – some smart brand managers and some functional experts in research and media.

But the marketing landscape has changed dramatically and the skill sets and experiences needed on a CMO’s marketing bench have changed just as dramatically. New media, market fragmentation, and brand proliferation have given birth to new ways to go to market and new challenges in doing so. Today CMOs need to rethink the types of marketing expertise they need on the team.

Here are 6 types of players that can help produce winning results in today’s marketing environment:

1.  A Brand Operator – This isn’t just a fancy new label for the old brand manager function – a Brand Operator contributes a whole different perspective, skill set, and expertise. While brand managers manage activities to promote the brand, Brand Operators operationalize brands throughout the entire Company. Brands represent a way of doing things that should drive business strategy, define operating processes, and impact company culture. As such, a CMO needs someone to activate the brand in all of these areas – working with senior management, operational teams, and human resources. A Brand Operator is someone who truly understands the Company’s business and who can overcome organizational barriers to get things done.

2.  A Connections Planner – With the proliferation of new media options and the fragmentation of traditional ones, a CMO needs someone who understands the impact of different touchpoints on how customers make purchase decisions. A Connections Planner is savvy about search marketing, branded entertainment, and weblogs as well as traditional media – and is always on the lookout for emerging opportunities. He or she combines knowledge about customers’ lifestyles and media usage/exposure with data-based analyses of the efficiency and effectiveness of the different avenues to communicate with them. The result is strategies for making relevant and salient connections between the brand and its target. Until and unless agencies demonstrate the ability to plan and buy media agnostically, the responsibility for Connections Planning must remain an internal function.

3.  A Creative Leader – Far too often, CMOs leave leadership of the brand’s creative expression up to the advertising agency. In rare instances, this may come to make sense over time — but generally speaking, there is too frequent turnover of creative directors and/or agencies themselves to maintain consistency and explore the richness of brand understanding that develops only through many years. Furthermore, a Creative Leader provides inspiration and direction for the expression of the brand at all touchpoints — from tradeshow booths to corporate headquarters to salespeople’s collateral. He or she does this through an intuitive understanding of the essence of the brand and a vision for the brand’s ambitions.

4.  Customer Experts – A CMO needs a Customer Expert for each segment of the Company’s existing customers/prospects and at least one dedicated to uncovering new sources of business. While market researchers have historically been tagged as the “voice of the customer,” this approach falls short of the marketing need. The team needs someone who is more interested in customers than in methodologies — someone who synthesizes insights from all sources of information (database analyses, store audits, cultural scanning, syndicated shopping data, and even “grandmother research”) along with primary consumer research to develop a rich profile and deep understanding of the target customers.

5.  An Investment Analyst – Today’s boardroom requires a CMO to prove the return on marketing investments – and so a CMO requires an Investment Analyst on the team. This person implements the infrastructure and process for collecting the necessary marketing data, analyzes and evaluates marketing investments on a timely basis and in an objective manner, and makes recommendations for future budget allocation. Although the CFO’s office should be consulted, the job shouldn’t be left to controllers. A finance-savvy marketer will figure out how to account for, not dismiss, the subjectivity that comes with the marketing territory – and he or she will be familiar with market research data that can be used in the analyses.

6.  An Independent Advisor – The CMO needs an Independent Advisor for the same reasons Tony Soprano needs his conciliare and Jon Gruden needs a defensive coordinator on headset with a bird’s eye view of the game. When you’re in the trenches, it’s sometimes hard to see the forest for the trees – and it’s even harder to be objective about something the whole team has been passionately pursuing. Free from bandwidth and political constraints, an Independent Advisor can provide the big picture view when a reality check is needed — or dig deep into a problem to uncover an elusive diagnosis. He or she can be the source for “the word on the street,” contribute perspectives from different categories and brands, and play the role of a talent scout.

These 6 types of players can form the foundation for a winning marketing team. Of course, this begs the question of the role of the CMO.

I suggest the CMO’s primary role is one of a maestro – the conductor who brings out the specific talents of each player and brings them together to produce a great work. The CMO has the vision and recruits people with the potential to deliver it, entices and enables them to see it, and enrolls them in engaging in it – and then eliminates distractions and shores up resources. Moreover, a maestro determines spirit and style, setting the culture in which the team will operate.

The right players with the right leader and the right culture. This is the stuff dreams — dream teams, that is — are made of.

(image above is from Bill Frakes/SI)

related posts:

• invertising
• on marketing and leadership

Next week I’m speaking at The Marketing Forum, a national conference for Chief Marketing Officers and brand managers.  My talk is on “Gaining the Competitive Edge:  How Companies Drive Business Growth by Operationalizing Their Brands without Huge Marketing Budgets.”

The topic was prompted by the results from an Association of National Advertisers study that indicated 64% of Chief Marketing Officers and brand managers say their brands do not influence decisions made at their companies.

When I first read that report, I was stunned -– nearly 2/3rd or companies are pouring millions of dollars into marketing and advertising without really basing their business on the values and attributes they’re communicating!  But then I realized this is probably happening because most people have an incorrect or incomplete understanding of what a brand is.

Many of you have heard/read what I believe a brand is — it’s a bundle of values and attributes that define:

• the value delivered to customers
• the way of doing business that is the basis of a company’s relationships with stakeholders

So with this understanding of a brand, it’s clear a brand can have immense direct and lasting impact on all areas of a business because of its unique ability to explain what the company is all about and to ensure the organization delivers on it.   But in order to have this impact, the organization must stop using the brand only as an outward-facing, image-oriented message.  The brand must be operationalized.  It’s the core of the business and as such it can be used a tool for managing it.

My presentation will talk about transforming brand-building from a costly, discrete, and subjective activity into the most integral way of managing and growing the business, using a management approach I call “brand as business^TM”.

The “brand as business” management approach involves the deliberate and systematic management of the business around the brand — thinking of the brand as the business. The approach uses the brand as a guide for executing all business activities — from generating shared insights about the business, to driving superior planning decisions, to facilitating consistent and efficient execution.

In my session, I’m going to outline examples like one from a client who used the “brand as business” approach to re-position their brand to appeal to a different target, completely changing the channels they’re in, their packaging, their product formulations and new products.  Another example will come from a client who used a “brand as business” tool called a customer experience architecture to define and deliver the optimal brand customer experiences to new segments and in channels without diluting their brand by fragmenting or distorting it.

My talk is going to require the participants to take off their marketing hats and think more broadly about their business — to stop hoping for bigger marketing budgets and to start figuring out how to help everyone in the organization to develop, maintain, and activate the brand across all of their activities.

I hope people won’t expect that, because my session billed as an opportunity to learn how to build your brand without a huge marketing budget, I’m going to talk how to generate buzz through low-budget social media and guerilla tactics.  While those things may be important, I’m going to focus on how people can increase the power of their brand simply by improving the fundamentals of what their companies do –- I hope it all goes well.

If you’d like a copy of the presentation, DM on Twitter @deniseleeyohn or email me at mail AT deniseleeyohn DOT com — I’ll send it to you after next week.

Before we quickly toss aside 2008 with the carelessness due a former lover, I thought it might be enlightening to look back on the predictions that were made at this time last year — you know, those lists of trends that were predicted to shape the marketing experience in 2008.  For my final post of the year, let’s look into whether any of them ended up being right.  From the multitude of predictions that were made last December, I’ve decided to focus on the top 10 “Trends to Watch in 2008” written by Bob Liodice, President and CEO of the ANA, and published in Ad Age magazine.

Let’s have a look, shall we?

1.  MARKETERS HIT A ROUGH PATCH
“With caution flags waving, marketers will keep expectations and spending plans modest.”

on target?  I’d say so!  According to TNS Media Intelligence, overall ad spending dropped 1.7%  for the first nine months of 2008, with a 2% drop in the third quarter alone, despite heavy Olympics and political advertising.  And those declines are likely to only increase when Q4 is factored into the full year recap.  In fact, instead of “a rough patch,” one could say we’ve been on extended bumpy ride.

2.  INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY RULE
“Marketers won’t run away from traditional media — but will leverage technology and new media to accentuate message delivery to consumers and customers.”

on target?  maybe — it’s true, consumers are using social networking sites more than ever, but advertising spending has not kept pace. Despite new social network ad formats launched in 2008, eMarketer has revised its projections for US social network ad spending. It now estimates advertisers will spend $1.2 billion on social networks this year, down from the previous projection of $1.4 billion made in May.

Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld is even quoted as saying, “As we continue to look for opportunities for a mass message, TV is one of the cheapest vehicles around.”  So even though marketers may want to be innovative, the almighty dollar is what rules.

3.  GET SERIOUS ABOUT ACCOUNTABILITY
“Recognizing the critical importance of accountability, companies will appoint a czar — the chief accountability officer — to lead a disciplined, internally consistent approach to marketing measurements, metrics and productivity.”

on target?  that would be a ‘no’ — as much as increased accountability may be needed, companies don’t seem to be doing much about it.  According to a recent study by the Conference Board, more than 1/3 of companies report making no efforts to measure marketing return on investment.  Among the remaining companies, which had implemented programs, none have yet achieved their goals in measuring ROI. Only 1/4 report making “good” progress.  Yikes!  While the actual appointment of a Chief Accountability Officer might be an ANA pipe dream, we should be making more progress toward increased marketing accountability.

4.  DIGITAL, DIGITAL, DIGITAL (AND PORTABLE TOO)
“As Steve Ballmer proclaimed at the 2007 ANA Annual Conference, all media ultimately will be created and delivered digitally…The challenge: Are marketers skilled enough to take advantage of this rapidly changing landscape?”

on target?  yes and no — yes, because between the 10,000+ iPhone apps and the credit the deployment of digital media has been given in Barack Obama’s presidential win (see next item below), it’s hard to argue the impact digital had on our lives in 2008; but no, because it doesn’t seem like most marketers have the skills necessary to take advantage of digital media’s full potential.  According to a survey by consultancy Citigate Dewe Rogerson, 40.4% of marketing professionals believe they lack the in-house skills to introduce digital marketing strategies (while CDR’s study was based on marketers UK and Ireland, I’m guessing the findings for the US would be similar).

5.  THE ‘BRAND SWARM’
“Marketers will move decidedly in the direction of DDB CEO Chuck Brymer’s “swarm theory” — the notion that people and their opinions coalesce to form critical forces that massively influence marketplace ideas and concepts.”

on target?  two words for you: Barack Obama

6.  GETTING COMPENSATION RIGHT (PLEASE)

“Compensation models will evolve in 2008. Agencies and clients will work together to create mutually fair value- and incentive-based approaches.”

on target?  not at all — in fact, there’s so little evidence of this having happened in 2008, I couldn’t even find enough material on this subject to make something up.  I did, however, find articles dating back to 1998 stating predictions of imminent changes in agency compensation models.  Perhaps instead of calling “getting compensation right” as a prediction, we should think of it as a New Year’s resolution — we all know what happens to those.

7.  NEUROLOGICAL MARKET RESEARCH
“Going beyond traditional focus groups and consumer surveys, market research will embrace scientific approaches that literally tap consumers’ brains to learn how they neurologically respond to commercial messages and make brand choices.”

on target?  not yet — BRANDWEEK magazine’s coverage of the new fMRI technology in their 08.25.08 issue does more justice to this topic than I can do here, but the Readers’ Digest version is:

-  “technology has finally caught up to the aspirations [to see inside the working mind of a consumer] and made it all possible-or at least possible to begin”

-  “all it needs are companies willing to support [it]”

8.  EMERGENCE OF THE ‘RENAISSANCE MARKETER’
“A new breed of marketing professional is emerging — individuals with a holistic view of the world and extraordinary observational powers. These “renaissance marketers” will be part humanist, part psychologist, part anthropologist and part technologist.”

on target?  no — although we saw some unlikely selections for Chief Marketing Officer appointments this year (recent case in point:  Jill Beraud, former CMO for Victoria’s Secret, named as PepsiCo’s CMO), I’m not seeing a dramatic shift in the experience base of CMOs.  And that’s too bad — C.K. Prahalad, University of Michigan professor and authority of management, explains it best.  With today’s need for innovation, he says, it’s the “unique person you want to look at, not necessarily whether he had this or that experience at P&G.”

9.  PRIVACY, PRIVACY, PRIVACY
“In 2008, marketers will become increasingly sensitive to privacy issues…This tug of war between consumer privacy and information access will require marketers to work hard to explain and justify the lifestyle benefits of highly individualized, personalized commercial communications.”

on target?   not really — Yahoo! was the biggest mover in this area, announcing just this month they will start making user data anonymous within 90 days, and will destroy all personally-identifiable data within six months, with some exceptions for fraud, security or legal obligations.  And earlier this year  Microsoft was pushing for regulation of the data that online companies collect for marketing purposes. But we really haven’t seen a wholesale push to more or new privacy practices.

ANA may have needed to include this in the years’ predictions to be politically-correct — but the truth is, there really hasn’t been lot of change in marketers’ approach to privacy nor do I expect will there be.  We may not want to admit it, but the benefits of behavioral targeting and personalized marketing are strong enough to outweigh any substantitive change — and we’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible.

10.  THE POWER OF STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
“Strategic alignment is one of the most important roles of the chief marketing officer, and In 2008 more CMOs will ensure organizations are strategically aligned.”

on target?  definitely not — according to a study by the ANA, 64% of Chief Marketing Officers and brand managers say their brands do not influence decisions made at their companies (I’ve previously posted on this sad fact).   And in research that I conducted along with one of my partners, Coogan Partners, senior marketers from a range of companies named the lack of alignment between innovation and brand strategy as one of the top impediments to implementing brand strategy.

So CMOs need to work more on alignment.  But there’s hope — I’m hoping for a silver lining in the pressure the tough economy is putting on marketing budgets — perhaps 2009 will be the year marketers actually focus their efforts internally and realize how much more impact they can have through internal brand alignment and integration.

So there you have it — out of the 10 trends predicted, my take is:

• 2 were on target
• 3 kinda were, maybe, if you wanted to be generous
• 5 definitely not

Hmmm…it looks like some crystal balls may need a tune-up.  Let’s hope the powers that be have a better grip on what’s in store for 2009.

And with that, I’m signing off for the year.  Thanks for your readership of brand as business bites this year – I’ve enjoyed feeding our brains together.  See you in January!

I’m posting live from the CMO Council Summit in Monterey, CA — it’s a membership-only gathering of approx. 100 CMOs from a range of industries (everything from Ciao Bella gelato to SAP) and the theme of the conference is “Routes to Revenue.” 

As Council Executive Director, Donovan Neale-May, explains, “Given the current economic malaise, this year’s theme is spot on.  Marketing is challenged like never before to retain and grow existing customer relationships…Identifying new revenue opportunities, under-served segments, and adjacent markets will be critical to marketing’s effectiveness in the year ahead.”

I plan to do a more thorough report of the Conference in my next brand as business briefTM (if you’re not on the distribution list, you can sign-up at www.deniseleeyohn.com/newsletter.html ) but here are a few interesting statistics that were bandied around today:

-  123,000 new products were launched in 2007 — of those, only 3,500 generated over $10MM in revenue; only 10 generated over $50MM (source:  not specified) — yikes!

-  in a study of 1,300 products, it was found that an average of 2.5% of the product’s customer base was responsible for 85% of the volume (source:  Catalina Marketing) — certainly makes the case for ensuring you have advanced analytics and customer intimacy so you can retain and grow the most profitable existing customer relationships

-  76% of CMOs say they are not fully realizing the potential of their existing customers (source:  the CMO Council) — a shame, particularly given the prior stat

-  64% of CMOs say they are evaluating all areas to improve marketing performance (source:  the CMO Council) — I’m not sure trying to do everything is the right answer

More conference coverage to come…