26 June 2010 Right Where It Belongs

Here’s a slide from a marketing unit I took this semester. You’ll have to ignore the death by PowerPoint.

I’m sure you’ve seen similar statistics before. Generally taken from the Fortune 500 or similar, a survey that demonstrates how poorly senior management consider marketing. At least that’s how it’s explained in lectures.

But that’s not right. If these managers are running the most successful businesses in the world, why is there an assumption they’re wrong? One would think they’re doing a pretty damn good job as it is.

Maybe that’s exactly where marketing should be.

Posted by Zac Martin
No Comments
  • LachyW
    Posted at June 27, 2010 12:37pm, 27 June Reply

    Could also demonstrate how poorly senior management understand marketing, in my opinion.

    If memory serves correctly, lecturer will have gone on to tell you that the marketing department is lucky to even be represented at board level.

    That is very dissapointing and a major issue for the industry.

    However, you do make a good point that in a some of these cases, marketing simply is a bit down the chain. BUT, it's very context dependant.

    Consider two big Aussie companies:

    BHP – importance of marketing? Probably pretty low in the scheme of things.

    Woolworths – very high.

    Actually this reminds me of the old Kellogg's case study.

  • Promotional Products
    Posted at June 28, 2010 12:53am, 28 June Reply

    Seeing how marketing is viewed, no wonder so many companies are closing down. Close down marketing when it counts, you will have nothing to build on… Interesting stats.

  • Daniel Oyston
    Posted at June 28, 2010 9:35am, 28 June Reply

    Opening up the old can of worms and putting the lid back on very quickly – “what is marketing?”.

    Rhetorical question in this company but we all know research and development is one of, if not the, first steps in “marketing”. To me the stats simply position upper management don’t get “marketing” and instead see it as sales and advertising. That’s not news really is it?

    Or maybe they do because they know if they correctly research and develop then the solution will be so closely aligned to the target market’s need/problem that they could do with a bit less marketing (because they wouldn’t have to “sell” it as much)?

  • Anonymous
    Posted at June 29, 2010 2:38pm, 29 June Reply

    Maybe they chose "marketing & advertising" but they just meant advertising.

    *Corrected error above, please delete Zac 🙂

  • Anonymous
    Posted at June 29, 2010 4:49pm, 29 June Reply

    Of course Marketing would be cut down; if you look at ANY publicly listed companies (which, for the most part, tend to be the majority of Fortune 500 etc.), the last thing they would do in a problematic economy or financial pressure is invest into additional comms, market research, media space, brand strategy, promos etc.

    That would do very little to garner shareholder support.

    You're looking at the wrong information. Nobody discredits Marketing. It just isn't as important as computers to type on, research on new products, or helping the people develop into capable resources.

Post A Comment