The biggest problem with marketing in today’s digital, buzzword-dominated environment is that those proclaiming to be marketers don’t know the basics about marketing. The boards we report to don’t either, but they will still hold us accountable. The marketing profession has responded to today’s digital-driven world by coining new terms for existing concepts to make them seem new and different. We fall prey to the shiny objects that we are told to use despite their short lifespans. There was a marketing world before the internet, you know. Indeed, the origins of what we now know as product management go back 80 years to Procter & Gamble, when Neil McElroy wrote a memo outlining some of the tasks of a brand manager. He recommended that there be a team of people devoted to thinking about every aspect of marketing the brand and succinctly summarised the formula for P&G’s success: “Find out what the consumers want and give it to them.” Maybe I am about to commit marketing heresy by writing this, but it is what I believe: the tools and channels of marketing change, but the basic marketing processes of strategy, targeting, positioning, crafting a message, communicating and selling have to remain the same. READ MORE: Mark Ritson – Tactics without strategy is dumbing down our discipline[1] Whenever you hear that everything has changed or that traditional marketing – including branding, advertising, PR etc – is dead, ask yourself: is it really? What is social media marketing other than the insertion and relaying of a brand message via a channel in order to get a targeted customer to buy something? And if you want to be seen on social media by your target audience, you will have to pay. Is this really anything other than just pure advertising? We should get…

Brands need to move into a post customer-centric world Marketing has to move beyond being customer-centric into a world of “being people-centric”, according to Nina Bibby, marketing and customer director at O2 Speaking on a panel at Advertising Week Europe, on why brands need to embed themselves in culture and start engaging with what consumers care about, Bibby said: “It’s easy for us as marketers to overestimate our role in our customer’s lives, we think about our products and services a lot and they don’t. Even in my category people aren’t thinking about it they are just using it.” Bibby was joined on stage by Alex Dimiziani, EMEA head of marketing at Airbnb, Andrew Geoghegan, global head of consumer planning at Diageo, and Tim Hulbert, group head of insight and research at Barclays, who all argued for the increasing need to tap into culture to remain relevant. Ignoring the rise in popularity of craft beer and drinkers “reacting to big brands” would be detrimental for Diageo because the category is “shaped by culture”, according to Geoghegan. “If we fail to ignore the cultural context that shapes alcohol consumption we are pretty much dead in the water.” Andrew Geoghegan, global head of consumer planning, Diageo Airbnb’s Dimiziani added: “It’s becoming fundamental to the decision-making process for consumers, both in terms of what they’re buying but also the brands they want to identify with and advocate for and remain loyal to.” She added that a big draw when she joined Airbnb in 2014, from Coca-Cola, was that the business “was created for a purpose” rather than being “a business that created a purpose and then embedded it”. For Barclay’s perspective, Hulbert told delegates that the brand had “lost sight” of the role it plays in society. He explained: “Banks were set up…

Fragmented agency relationships Speaking at a talk hosted by The Marketing Society at Advertising Week Europe yesterday (20 April), Mark Given, director of planning and proposition at Sainsbury’s, said that when he started his career in marketing as an assistant brand manager for Pringles, his job was very straightforward in terms of handling agency relationships. Nowadays, brands are expected to deliver “an omnichannel customer experience” by joining up the dots – something that Given argues is increasingly difficult due to fragmented agency relationships. “I would argue that our industry is filled with siloes that are not organised around putting the customer at the heart of decision making,” he said. “In my early career, I had one or two agency relationships to manage at most. I don’t think anyone believes you can have one agency that does everything, but neither can clients in my position manage 10 to 15 different agencies. What we need is for agencies to work together.” However, Given said most agencies are not willing to collaborate, despite what they might say. “The reality of the commercial models is such that while you [agencies] will tell us that you’re happy to work in a number of different structures, the reality of the amount of competition between agencies is that you fundamentally don’t want to [collaborate],” he explained. Given argued that agencies need to stop obsessing about specialisms and channels and put the customer first, concluding: “I don’t care about digital first, it needs to be customer first. What are the most pressing customer issues and how are you addressing this as a client or agency?” Tackling marketing’s image problem Dominic Grounsell, global marketing director at foreign exchange company Travelex, believes marketing’s image problem is the elephant in the room. He said the industry is increasingly “data-driven and technology-orientated”,…