Level 5 Blog

Time was when a marketing whiz could limit his range of expertise to card rates, eye tracking and unaided awareness, and leave stuff like supply chain management and employee engagement to masters of other domains. But as we’ve long proselytized, those days have gone the way of paper maps and the iPhone 4.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Today, it behooves each and every member of the marketing team—hell, it behooves each and every member of the entire organization, but especially the CMO—to acquaint him- or herself with the four corners of the operation. Chief marketing officers’ business is their brand, after all, and since the brand is their business, this makes the entire organization part of their turf.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           This point of view was endorsed, recently, by a study undertaken by IBM in which this valuable nugget was unearthed: CMOs had better become more tech and finance savvy if they expect to stay on top of a business landscape that promises to make increasingly sophisticated demands of its occupants in those areas and others.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              As part of its global CMO study, IBM hosted a panel discussion that surveyed some 1,700 CMOs hailing from 19 industries across 64 countries. The results showed that 79% of CMOs anticipate that business will be characterized by a high level of complexity over the next five years. In the next breath, just 48% report feeling equipped for it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            The panel’s organizers concluded, in harmony with what we’ve been preaching all these years, that marketers need to learn the language of IT and finance (and we’d add, HR, operations and legal to the inventory), and to have a fuller appreciation for the importance of a business’s various discreet departments’ integration, if they want to succeed into the next generation.  “…CMOs [need] to build their credibility of working across an entire business,” the article says. Indeed. Only with such an initiative can this executive fully leverage the brand’s potential throughout the organization and drive its growth and profitability.

To help spur consumer interest in the nascent and labouring Playbook, and to draw buyers away from the expanding surfeit of other tablet options, RIM’s retail partners have been slashing prices. Playbook price tags have been trimmed by as much as $200, and sellers in the UK are offering £150 discounts. The slight lift in sales the move generated notwithstanding, overall Playbook returns remain disappointing.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          With a potential double-dip recession on the horizon, many organizations may be considering taking pages from the same “playbook”, with the similar notion that lowering price is the way to prop up profitability.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        While going with a low cost (and therefore a low price) may be a viable strategy—provided your business system is aligned to that end (e.g., by optimizing your supply chain, living a low-cost culture, etc., as WestJet does), it’s not a guaranteed trail to turnaround. When HP cut the price of its TouchPad (RIP) to $400—$100 lower than the equivalent iPad 2—it still couldn’t drum up enough demand to keep the thing on the streets.

With that cold, grey reality in mind, then, some considerations to ponder before getting burned by a fire sale:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  – Is price really the issue, or is it more about clarity around what value you offer the prospect? Maybe you need to revisit your consumer value proposition before getting out the red marker.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  – Do you understand the emotional and functional attributes associated with your brand? Your troubles may not be the result of price issues at all, but of issues with the emotions your brand inspires. If so, an initiative to gain a better understanding of the emotional underpinning of your brand , according to the market, may be in order.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  – How are you positioned vis-à-vis the competition? It’s always timely to ruminate on what unique value you bring to the table, especially as it relates to price and value.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  – Will a price cut erode any brand equity you’ve already amassed? Let’s face it, if Apple were to cut the cost of its iPad due to lack of volume, the market would receive a signal that Steve Jobs’ swan song is not in high flight.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  – Do you intend to return the price to its original in the future? That’s tricky business. Bear in mind that it’s generally harder to increase prices once you’ve lowered them than the other way around (which is probably why this short-term solution is so often the first line of attack).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Cutting price may offer a short-term Band-Aid solution, but over the long term, it could result in your brand’s early demise.

Ugh. Another article that laments miserably the state of things, and then fails to draw the right conclusion from it all.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Citing a recent Fournaise Marketing group study, this piece bemoans the fact that CEOs have little regard for the marketers in their midst.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Pointing out that 73% of chief executives believe their marketing departments are just drawing paycheques and taking up space, the piece makes the case for educating marketers to better recognize the business value of their activities. So-called “marketing,” as this article characterizes it, can score the credibility it apparently lacks by taking on the point of view that the brand’s primary objective is to incorporate and align every last function (and functionary) in your firm around it – it’s not just for marcom.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          With this holistic approach, marketers can then take responsibility for professional tasks that wouldn’t normally fall under their purview (like aligning all departments and functions around the brand), but which produce bottom-line results. Then, Chicken Little-like, they can be the ones that enjoy the credit for the bump in value the brand (as an asset measured on the balance sheet) experiences as a result.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              As the traditional masters of brand, it makes sense that marketers take the leadership role in implementing it throughout the organization. The added responsibility has risks, to be sure, but with risk comes reward. And if marketers want to be taken seriously by the gang in the C-suite, they need to pony up the goods and demonstrate that they’re capable of creating tangible value.