Implementing is the Hard Part It’s obvious. Creating “strategy” is sexy. It requires thought, knowledge, sensitivity to the marketplace, and creativity. MBA courses stress strategy. Discussions abound on strategy. We worry about social media strategies, mobile marketing strategies, strategies for enhancing “customer engagement” or the “customer experience,” advertising strategies, SEO strategies, inbound marketing strategies, sales…
I recently started a LinkedIn discussion on whether a Chief Marketing Officer should be a leader first and a marketer second. I was quite surprised by the diversity of opinion on the question; and I was even more surprised by the number of people who thought leadership was more important because the next logical step…
A New Marketing Metaphor? The marketplace has always been a complex and subtle combination of needs, wants, financial constraints, and economic imperatives. In the last decade or so, that complexity has been amplified by an accelerating rate of technological change, radically new social mechanisms, and, in the last few years, a dismal economy. In marketing,…
Why CMOs Don’t Last The typical CMO tenure these days is about 3½ years. This is up from about 23 months in 2004, but it is still way below the average CEO tenure of 7-9 years. This data, from Spencer Stuart, is for leading consumer companies. (B2B CMOs often don’t fare even this well.) And…
Oddballs, Outliers, and Social (and Marketing) Change I have been doing quantitative research for more years than I like to admit. I’ve seen research trends come and go. I’ve seen analytical models rise and fall in popularity. I’ve seen the pendulum swing back and forth on the virtues of qualitative vs. quantitative research techniques and…
Messaging Management or Cognitive Dissonance? In dictionary terms, mixed messages are when someone is getting different opinions or answers from the same source. In psychological terms, this causes “cognitive dissonance,” the feeling of discomfort that comes from holding two (or more) conflicting views. This is a concept that marketers and brand managers ignore at their…
Uh Oh. There Goes the Marketing Profession… Spencer Stuart recently issued a press release with the headline: “Average Chief Marketing Officer Tenure Hits New High: 42 Months.” Okay, so it is a press release, and the headline is an exaggeration. In fact, their data comes from CMOs at “leading marketers or advertisers with a significant…
The Chief Marketing Officer’s Challenge Recently, it seems as though every time I turn around, there’s another new catch phrase or technology demanding to be seen as the centerpiece of marketing: mobile marketing, social media, customer experience, customer satisfaction as strategy, lead nurturing, QRCs, etc. Corporations and marketers are diving head first into the technologies…