Time for a Marketing Coalition? By Phil Rumbol
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Our new monthly blogger Phil Rumbol, former marketing director of Cadbury’s and now founding partner of 101 – a free range creative company, discusses whether it’s time to create a `Marketing Coalition’.
“Some people say marketing is a very complicated and mystical thing. Actually it’s not. It’s a very simple thing.” So said, Sir Alan Sugar in last week’s Young Apprentice.
There are many examples of companies built through great marketing. Marketing that works so well that the brand in question is in a category of one. Think Apple, Coca Cola and Nike.
So why don’t more companies take a leaf out of their book?
Why don’t more companies adopt the enlightened approach of these ‘natural born’ marketing companies?
It’s hard to extrapolate the principles that make them successful – and even harder to abide by them. Instead they rely on the collective instinct of their leaders rather than ‘painting by numbers.’
But I think there’s another reason – and one that now I’m ‘agency side’ I see more clearly than ever before – namely that things often go awry when the marketing thinking gets exposed outside of ‘the Marketing bubble.’ In other words, when the new idea gets shared with the MD / CEO / Board. In this context, too much of what marketers talk about can sound vague or illogical – just ask Sir Alan.
Having been in this situation many times, I’m sure they sit there thinking ‘I don’t really understand what these guys are saying, or really know whether it’s any good.”
So what do they do? They do the business equivalent of “phone a friend”, they ask ‘what does the research say?’
They cling to handrails of normative research, using comparison vs norms as the key yardstick to gauge whether something is any good or not.
And who can blame them?
The trouble is, a lot of this is fed by outmoded marketing paradigms and quant researchers dutifully playing the role of a doctor enjoying the attention of a hypochondriac.
The research is neat, linear, and logical, and offers to predict the future – something which most ‘certainty-seeking’ corporations lap up. The trouble is, we humans are inherently irrational and unpredictable – so the research often fails to give genuine insight into how consumers will really react in the real world.
So what’s the answer?
In short, I think we need to replace the ‘old’ marketing orthodoxy with a more enlightened view of how consumers behave – but more importantly, I think the marketing community needs to do a much better job at explaining this ‘new theory’ to non-marketers.
I actually have a lot of sympathy with the predicament of these non-marketers. We don’t make it easy for them. When I first presented the Gorilla film to Todd Stitzer, the ex-CEO of Cadbury, I remember him saying “Phil, I have a lot of respect for what you’re doing, but I can’t let you do this.”
Against the backdrop of a recent salmonella recall and a major activist shareholder peering over his shoulder I’m sure he was thinking : ‘now is not the time to be taking risks, yet this guy is telling me it’s a good idea to show an ad that doesn’t feature any chocolate, has no message and is three times longer than normal.’
So when he said “No” I wasn’t frustrated. I empathized with his dilemma. But equally, I didn’t give up. I set about compiling the evidence to help him understand the logic behind the campaign (yes, there was some.) And to his immense credit, he eventually agreed to air the ad, and the rest is history (which for the record resulted in a ROI 4x the FMCG average.)
So my point is not that non-marketers are wrong to behave as they do. It’s more that the marketing community needs to do a better job at educating them about how marketing can really drive consumer behavior. More to the point, they need to displace the outmoded models and research techniques developed when there was only one commercial TV channel and limited choice.
There are many excellent examples of thought leadership spanning topics such as behavioural economics, neuroscience, network theory etc.
But there are three issues surrounding this;
1) There is no singular coherent narrative encompassing all of these ‘newer’ theories of marketing – like politics, they often come across as competing ideologies rather than a coalition of voices spreading a more accurate view of consumer behavior.
2) Not even all of the marketing community understand and buy into these theories – many preferring instead to view marketing as a science with fixed rules, rather than the dynamic and complex topic that it is.
3) Too little time is spent on building genuine understanding of this amongst the non-marketing community.
So for the sake of great marketing and the credibility of the discipline within the Board room, I’d like to see a coalition of academics, industry bodies, research companies, progressive brand owners and agencies join forces (rather than competing) to communicate a new marketing orthodoxy that makes the illogical seem logical – especially to non-marketers. That way, the industry can be on the front foot and avoid too much great thinking and ideas being killed when exposed outside the ‘Marketing bubble’.
Posted: December 13th, 2011 | Author: Leah.Latimer | Filed under: Creative Genius, Growth Drivers | Tags: 101, apple, coca-cola, Marketing Blog, Marketing Coalition, nike, Phil Rumbol, Sir Alan Sugar, the marketing society, Young Apprentice | Leave a Comment »
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