The future of Marketing

I have just taken delivery of my copy of “The future of Marketing” - a publication to celebrate 50 years of the Marketing Society, of which I am proud to be a member. It gets the views of 50 CEO’s from the worlds most successful companies in response to a single question “ What role will marketing play in the future success of your business?”.

Before I read it, I thought I would put down my views on the future of marketing, and then see how much I differ from the collective wisdom of the people in the book. I have tried to distill it down to a few themes, so here goes...

The first thing that should be commented on is the seismic shift that has taken place to bring the book together in the first place. 25 years ago, how many of those CEO’s would have had a marketer on their board or even on their senior team? All that “fluffy” stuff....don’t think so! If nothing else, then marketers today should be thankful to the pioneers of the last 50 years for getting them to the top table, and getting their views heard. Marketers are in the place now where they can be the engine for growth, and we should not waste the opportunity.

The challenge for now is to really drive the focus on the customer to the top of the agenda, and marketers have to take the responsibility to do this. The marketer of today has to realise that they are the heartbeat of the business - the representative of the customer. They need to take the time to understand all aspects of their business because that is how they will understand the real customer experience at every point of interaction - the website, the initial enquiry, the delivery method, the service call; they all have the capacity for a negative experience but the flip side is more important - they all have the capacity for a really excellent, loyalty building, brand reaffirming experience.

Which brings me to the brand - the one visible manifestation of what the company stands for. It is so much more than a visual logo; it is the rallying point, the focus and the strength of an organisation. The team need to be proud of it and proud to be a part of it, customers want to have it as part of their life, suppliers want to have the brand on their roster for the reflected glory; it is the shorthand for the company.

In a muddled world, where the pressures on growth are so high and competition global, the brand must regain its importance. The last decade has seen short term focus at its most destructive, and the rate of change is not going to stop now. It is not just a shift from short term opportunity led campaigns in favour of longer term brand building, it is ensuring that the brand strategy is the most important thing in the business plan, and it is at the heart of everything the enterprise does. This will take courage and persistence but the rewards will be there to see in the next 50 years.

The brand - customer axis will inevitably be the driving force for the future.

Another major impact will be the shift to “personal media” - marketers have to be aware of the huge power this gives as well as the huge risk it represents, and make sure that they harness the first and mitigate the latter. The fact remains that once you hit the send or post button, you effectively lose control. The speed at which damage can be done to the brand is frightening and this is going to place a greater emphasis on the marketer’s ability to turn a crisis into an opportunity. Conversely, this speed can be a tremendous ally.

Where we used to put together clever adverts, put them through focus groups, adjust the communication as a result, place in the mass media, possibly run a research sweep to see how messages were getting across, sit back and wait for the sales numbers to come in at the next quarter - all in all the process could take 6 months. Today, you can put a rough cut on a social network site, get comments back, start an online viral campaign, set up an online panel and monitoring service and sell via your ecommerce site in a matter of days. Simplistic I know but the fact it can be done is of huge importance.

The next major trend - the rise of social responsibility and social enterprise. The next generation of customers will expect us to be part of a more socially aware society - whether this is via true eco friendly policies, philanthropy, team approach, sourcing philosophy or through support for other social programmes. Ultimately this will be part of a company’s basic philosophy and will become a vital part of the brand, but this is not something that will necessarily come naturally, and so marketers will have to champion the cause.

So there it is - absolute customer focus, brand passion, harnessing the speed of the “new” market, and championing social responsibility are the four major themes I feel we should be concentrating on for the future. There will doubtless be other areas that the 50 CEO's will look at, and within each of these headings there are loads of factors, however when we look back in the next 50 years I suspect that these four areas will be near the top of the list.