Just when brands are met with the extraordinary opportunity to turn their digital strategies to gold, risk aversion continues to dominate the gestalt of most marketing departments in Corporate America. The economic crisis of the past three years has stifled creativity and even gentle risk-taking as marketing leaders remain fearful for their jobs. One would think that during a meltdown like the one we’ve been in, innovation would be a necessary force to counter the old and tired ways of doing business. But like the old Japanese proverb goes, “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.”
Last week Olivier Blanchard spoke at General Mills about the ongoing trends in social media, but the week prior to that he went on a Twitter tirade that unmistakably came from a sense of frustration. You can read the entire thread here on my colleague Karl’s Tumblr site. It’s rather brutal. But reading in between the anger is a sort of quiet desperation from management that if you take a risk and it fails, you’ll be out of work. And there’s something to that. Senior marketing managers (CMOs, in particular) have the shortest leadership tenures in business. Worse, the ones that survive are often best known for successes they achieved in executing out-of-date media programs. (Think “TV ad campaign from the early ‘90s.”)
The problem is much deeper. There continues to be a general lack of understanding at the very top of organizations about the business value of the digital marketplace. I don’t indict senior management for this . . . always. Digital marketing isn’t the end all, be all of business. (Sorry, friends.) Technology has infused all aspects of business, from supply chain management to production facilities. There are a lot of fish to fry, technologically speaking, and marketing has always been an underappreciated discipline by senior management, especially in B2B companies. Frankly, digital marketing or digital brand experience is not always going to be front of mind.
Of course this is a shame because marketing isn’t, well, marketing anymore. How a company is experienced is seamless to the consumer across media, devices, and departmental silos. If one of your customers has an excellent experience from one of your people in a retail store or on the phone or via live chat on the web, and they tweet about their delight to the 20,000 people who follow them, that’s just plain ridiculously awesome. And I argue this isn’t marketing but the Holy Grail of brand experience: customer advocacy.
So, who’s talking about advocacy inside companies? Who’s reading the writing on the wall and realizing this isn’t even all that innovative or risky but just plain common sense? The problem as I see it right now is that marketing people are having a terrible time making quality business cases for their ideas. Digital provides ample opportunity to develop actual business plans and outcomes, not just tactical suggestions or recommendations that are likely to fall on deaf ears. This goes for everyone—from an entry-level marketing person with a good idea to the CMO who has struggled to make digital sound anything other than buzzword bingo to his or her C-level colleagues.
The riskiest prospect of all is to stagnate and do nothing or to simply blow the dust off last year’s marketing plan. Incremental improvements aren’t good enough. Your customers have left the building, digitally speaking. They’re looking to do business better. Will you be there for them? And, yes. You should feel urgency about this. Your job is at risk.
Changing in a particular category of digital products and services may involve in minimal risk.
Posted by: Email List Broker | Nov 23, 2011 at 03:22 AM