Peter Drucker once wrote that since the purpose of business is to generate customers, only two functions do this: marketing and innovation. All other business functions are expenses. That said, one could argue that this advice is being ignored as marketing appears to not be getting the kind of attention it deserves.
The average tenure of chief marketing officers is less than 23 months. (That’s a quicker turnover than NFL coaches.) Then there’s the phenomenon of some of America’s big brands being in big trouble. Some have disappeared; some are in financial difficulty; and some are watching their competitors eat their lunch–or, shall we say, market share. Why are some brands losing their long-lived integrity? Where has marketing gone wrong in guiding these businesses? General Motors, Sears, Kodak and AT&T are shells of what they once were.
There are many reasons for this state of affairs. For openers, there is a level of competition that is mind-boggling. The last time I counted, there were 180 brands of dog food. A simple product like water had 50 brands. Got a cough or cold? You have 134 brands of medicine to choose from. This introduces what I call the tyranny of choice. If you make a mistake, your customers simply move on to any of a number of other options. In other words, if you make a mistake, your competitor quickly gets your business–and you never get it back.
Then there’s Wall Street with its relentless pressure on companies to keep growing, despite the fact that there is no need–only a desire–to continually expand. This leads to endless line-extensions that tinker with and chase business in categories already populated by other, well-established companies. This often results in categories becoming more and more commoditized, which in turn leads to selling on price rather than on a point of difference. This is not a happy place to reside, as all your competitors have pencils they can easily employ to mark things down.
Finally, there is onrushing technology that can make you either obsolete or quickly threatened. If you’re not on top of the technology in your category, trust me, someone else out there is trying to nail you. You have to be willing to attack yourself with a better idea and not let your competitor do it for you.
All this raises a number of questions that face today’s marketers: How do I prevent my brand from becoming a commodity? When do brand extensions begin to blur the brand? How should brands measure value? How do I balance the right amount of “sizzle” and steak in the creative process? How do I get senior management more involved in the marketing process?
We’ll explore these questions and more in upcoming posts, I hope you’ll stay tuned.
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