Why are CMOs being fired twice as fast as any other C-suiter? Why are major corporations like Old Navy, Taco Bell and Miller Lite letting their marketing executives go? A recent article by
Jonathan Salem Baskin questions why there is so much turnover in the marketing C-suite.
Is marketing changing? Sure. Is the marketing landscape beginning to flatten with the use of social media? Possibly. Maybe it’s as Jonathan suggests, maybe they deserved to be fired.
Lack of Accountability
Serfwerks believes that in many companies marketing is the last function to reject all accountability. Is there a change coming? Could this be why companies are moving on without their top marketing executives? Are we finally seeing the day where there are no more bottomless marketing budgets used to explore “creative” ideas? Are CEOs finally requiring CMOs to measure their marketing ROI? We sure hope so.
The Case for Accountability
A recent
study by CMG Partners and Chadwick Martin Bailey found the following:
- 75% of companies are highly interested in marketing measurement
- Less than 25% of companies are excelling at measuring & improving their marketing performance.
- 98% of those excelling at measuring and improving marketing performance say it is having a significant impact on their business.
- 55% of those excelling at measuring marketing performance are gaining market share.
If only 25% of companies are measuring their marketing performance it must be difficult to do. On the contrary. It’s rather simple. If you can look at past performance, define you key performance indicators and outline your sales cycle. You can measure your marketing with a 95% accuracy.
Are you measuring your marketing performance? Now is the time to do it. Don’t be the next marketing department casualty. Start being accountable today.
An Interesting Problem
Recently, we met with a client to discuss marketing strategy. This client has a long history of doing business in Utah and is one of the largest private companies in the state. However, when we met with them we met with a marketing committee composed of a public information director, graphic designer, corporate strategist, and the corporate pilot. No marketing director and no CMO.
Needless to say, this company has not devoted a lot of resources to strategic marketing. Just in case you missed it before- the corporate pilot is on the marketing committee. In the pilot’s defense, he is a perfectly intelligent person—he was just being allocated in an odd way.
After the meeting it became clear that this committee wanted to have a seat in the board room with the rest of the senior management team. Functions represented on this team were finance, operations, safety, and HR. All of these functions provide inputs that help the executive team make profitable decisions for the entire organization. Marketing was occasionally called upon to talk about the company website or the design of a tradeshow booth, but had no say in the strategic direction of the company’s marketing efforts. Why? It is because no one on the committee knew how to give the senior management team useful information or input. Continue reading 'Marketing’s Role in the C-Suite'»
De-Mystifying Marketing
By many, marketing seems like a mystic art form full of ambiguous and unvalidated metrics; creative gurus; and flavor-of-the-month tactics. Marketing should be no different than any other business function and held to the same levels of accountability and profitability. To think of marketing any other way is a less effective and negligent business practice.
Sophisticated marketers are able to de-mystify marketing by using research, statistical analysis, effective strategy, efficient tactical mixes, and continuous refinement in an effort to create marketing campaigns that provide measureble and attributable positive return on marketing investment. De-Mystifying Marketing will help you become a sophisticated, analytical, innovative, and effective marketer.
Join us for the De-Mystifying Marketing Workshop
Date: April 7th
Time: 9am to 1pm
Location: Salt Lake Community College Miller Campus (9750 So. 300 West, Suite 330) in Sandy, UT.
Your business may qualify for a discounted rate to this event and other Custom Fit events. Custom Fit is a state operated provider of training services for small businesses. Full priced admission is $126 per person. For more information regarding Custom Fit qualification and/or to sign-up for this event contact:
Custom Fit Salt Lake County
Shannon Strickland
801.957.5293 or SPEDRegistration@slcc.edu
Register here.
When my family first started renting movies back in the 80’s we went to a small mom-and-pop establishment called Carmen Video in Camarillo, CA. It was decked out like a movie theatre complete with a popcorn machine – something modern movie rental establishments look nothing like.
Sometime in the mid-80’s the first Blockbuster video opened up in town and within 18 months Carmen Video closed its doors forever. Between you and me- I think the only reason it stayed in business as long as it did is due to a selection of adult videos that they kept locked up in an adults only section (more like a cellar) of the store, which I never went into.
Blockbuster put Carmen Video out of business, and dominated the home movie rental business for years, because it had the lots of copies of the latest movies. They also had a huge selection of video games.
In September 2010 Blockbuster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In early 2011 they approached their creditors for more money- more debt, which is bad when you are already bankrupt.
What happened? Karma? Poor management? Bad investments? Antiquated business model? Competition? A combination of all these things? Continue reading 'What Went Wrong at Blockbuster?'»
For over 3 ½ years AT&T was the sole mobile phone network to carry the most iconic phone in the history of mobile phones, the iPhone.
All of that has now changed as Verizon executives have officially announced that they will begin carrying the iPhone 4 on their CDMA network. A quick visit to Verizon’s website revealed a huge banner featuring the iPhone 4 with the copy reading “iPhone 4. Verizon. It begins.” Sales start 2.10.11.
The move has been rumored for months and AT&T has spent millions of dollars during this time to beef up its network and tout other smart phones like the Blackberry Torch from mobile phone manufacturer RIM, as well as other phones based on Android and Windows mobile operating systems. In addition, AT&T pushed early upgrades in an effort to lock those craving an iPhone 4 into 2-year contracts. Smart, but short-term. Continue reading 'AT&T’s New Stance After iPhone Exclusivity'»
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