Making brands more distinctive

I have worked in marketing all my career from services to games to advertising. The fundamentals haven’t changed since I first sat my marketing exams in the early ‘90s – although much else has.

I’ve always believed that Marketing was the guy in the white hat – we think positively about consumers, want to understand what makes them tick, learn from (and beat) competitors and always have an eye on the now and future rather than trying to protect the past.

We still, however, have an obsession with the new and “better”, rather than the good, which provides a handy distraction from the hard work of creating solid, proven, strategic marketing planning and action. You don’t need to look far to come across vacant Twitter accounts and Facebook pages with lonely logos.

I’m sure we’ve all come across really poor examples of marketing too. Sometimes it is just a service to the sales function: Marketing side-lined as creating brochures or organising events – the Crayon Dept. Unfortunately some marketers are happy in this but maybe they’ve never been exposed to the real power of marketing.

To me Marketing is simply giving people what they want or making them want what you’ve got. Although a simple mantra it offers a world of possibilities. From product development to communication it effects all aspects of a business. Marketing needs to be a strategic function in every organisation not just a tactical support service.

You wouldn’t imagine a business without a finance or sales function yet marketing is still not seen as an essential business process. I came across two companies in the last month, one £20m and the other £6M turnover. Both trade on the success of their brand history yet neither has a single marketer employed. They “do” marketing but it is purely tactical and reactive. It is not planned, strategic or valued. To them marketing is a cost, not a potential profit centre!

So where are our heroes?

The trouble with marketing as an industry is that we have so few public heroes of our own.

We do, of course, have Kotler as an academic guru although is his initial work is now over 50 years old and ad-men such as Sir Martin Sorrell fight in our corner, but few others.

I often see great technology heroes such as Zuckerberg, renowned product engineers like Dyson and great swathes of entrepreneurs such as Branson and Sir Alan being feted as drivers of business. Their tacit use of marketing fundamentals to great effect is rarely noted.

Having more heroes would give our consumers (CEOs, MDs and clients) symbols of our usefulness and strategic power. It will also draw new blood to the industry and keep old lags like myself excited at the future prospects and huge potential of the marketing profession.

Joe