Ambitions Equal Allocations

Last week I posited that marketing leadership requires a keen focus on mining for internal innovators and ideas. I suspect that most marketing executives consider themselves to be innovative, because innovation is inherently creative, a trait common to marketing.

 

A brewing problem, however, is that marketing innovation is no longer singularly a right-brain creative pursuit. Technology has made even the simplest communication—let’s say, for example, a text message or e-mail—often among the most compelling messages in a consumer’s decision process. That 140-character Tweet or Facebook message or conversation thread on LinkedIn—none of which likely went through any real creative process—may also have contributed to the consumer opening his or her pocketbook.

 

Boring, right? That’s innovation? What about the Big Campaign? Where’s the iPad app? I didn’t spend $75,000 on an MBA and 20 years climbing into this chair for this!

 

As leaders, we have both professional and personal ambitions, and nowhere are they more transparent than in the budgets we create. Each year around this time, a variety of reports are generated by credible research organizations that show just where we put our priorities. One such report issued in July by eMarketer indicated that, while 78 percent of marketing executives believe social media is important for their companies’ successes, only 27 percent of them are funding social media as a strategic priority.

 

I see this type of data on a daily basis. We say one thing but fund initiatives quite differently. It’s fine to say that social media, for example, is strategic, but if that statement isn’t followed up with budgets to enable teams to have the time, resources, and money to innovate and execute around social—or any other emerging technology for that matter—then let’s stop pretending like we’re actually going to get anywhere.

 

We all know the truth: You as the leader set or approve the strategic priorities and budgets. Your staff’s job is to spend that money in the ways you’ve identified. Often during the budgeting and planning period, many innovative ideas bubble up and are presented to you from your teams with budgets requests. Too often these ideas receive little to zero funding. In many cases I understand why: Your teams haven't made their case. They have not presented the ideas as strategic; rather, the budget requests read as marketing wish-lists.

So, that's where marketing leaders can lead. Rather than simply not approving or underfunding the budgets, we need to either teach people how to think strategically (as in, "What fundamental problem are we solving or what new opportunity are we pursuing?") or we need to engage with them proactively to help vet the concepts. And, true, it may be that we personally don't even understand what technology they want to use or the social network they want to engage with, but we do know how to ask good, tough questions—because that's our job.

Without this dialogue, budgets for innovation simply never materialize. There should be zero disappointment if marketing teams aren't creating innovative programs or initiatives if their schedules are bogged down pursuing non-innovative (read: budget-approved) marketing work.

 

I’ve worked with marketing executives over the years who have truly budgeted for innovation. In some industries, such as travel, consumer electronics, or health and beauty, budget allocations toward “emerging media and innovation” have been as high as 30 percent of total budgets. Why? Because in those industries, the consumers are like chameleons, adopting new devices, technologies, applications, and social connections. Staying on top of them through great content, interactions, and applications requires non-stop innovation. Strategic nimbleness is the most valuable marketing currency.

 

Every marketing executive, regardless of industry, should assume that his or her company’s marketing strategy is most likely not fully attuned to the needs, consideration, and buying habits of the marketplace. To me, it’s a hell of lot safer and wiser to assume we’re behind the curve—and the only way out is to continuously measure what the consumer is doing and then quickly identify how we respond or innovate around truly groundbreaking ideas with which the consumer falls in love and adopts.

 

2012 is right around the corner. You’re budgeting right now. Are your ambitions aligned with the consumer’s? And are you budgeting to meet those expectations?

Comments

[twitter.com/aeklund]

Recently -- today? -- McKinsey came out with a great article on the end of "push advertising." Pretty great read.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Strategy/Were_all_marketers_now_2834

[TL]

I think most competent leadership knows social media is a very important and growing portion of how their customers are communicating. The breakdown often occurs on HOW to use it properly to increase sales or strengthen your brand. The real strategy work is not should we or shouldn’t we be in the space. It’s how do we get a truly effective and measurable result from our investment.

[Jed Leyland]

Funny...growing up you always thought marketing people, advertising types, etc were one step ahead of the public.
I guess the continued girth of the Yellow Pages - which are best used for booster seats,door stops, and fire starters is Exhibit A that the public only seems behind because they are about to lap the marketeers in the race for innovation.
Famous bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks. "That's where the money is."

Heah, marketeers. It's 2011. Social Media. That's where the people are. Wake up and smell the java script.