The Death Of Marketing, The Rise Of Innovating
In another example of how conventional wisdom about business is being upended, many companies are apparently jettisoning from the traditional function of “marketing”. In today’s New York Times, the results of some recent research by Strategy + Business suggests that “marketing” is being rethought, and recast as innovation:
[from Falling Short Of Greatness by Paul Brown]
The consultants note, however, that there is hope that the situation will improve.
Last year, Coca-Cola said it was eliminating the job of chief marketing officer and would be combining marketing, innovation and strategic growth into a single job.
The consultants wrote, “Coke followed Pepsi, Intel, I.B.M., Samsung and other pioneers in explicitly linking the marketing function and the growth imperative.’’
The erosion of traditional marketing — the end of conventional PR, the replacement of broadcast messaging with conversations, and the growing need for companies to be nimbler and more adaptive — is accelerating. This is perhaps more evident in small companies, where marketing has long been an afterthought: “We’ve built the product, I guess we better get Marketing involved and print some slicks for the trade show.” Rethinking of the functional organization is long overdue, and its time to get rid of the silo of marketing, divided from other functions, and move over to an organization that mirrors the critical processes in the business.
My experience is that marketing in many companies — as the researchers at Strategy + Business discovered — is lamentably bad. Let’s just put a bullet in it’s head, and focus on what should be pushing our businesses forward: innovation. It’s unlikely, however, that someone that has been acting as a “marketer” for years will be the right person to push innovation. The skills needed to be the head of innovation transcend marketing, and likely incorporate product development, strategy, and business development. In a large company, this innovator may be responsible for research, and handing off promising ideas to the larger company to turn into fielded products.
But no matter how this shakeup of the conventional organization is realized, one thing is for certain: the days of marketing are numbered.
Copyright © 2000-2009
4:24 pm
Stowe,
While the days of marketing as a standalone organization may be numbered, I hope small companies do not take the New York Times article or books such as The Innovator’s Delimma to mean that marketing and sales are not important. An innovative product will not sell itself.
Notice that in the same NY Time article, Fred Hassan, the chief executive of Schering-Plough, said. “in terms of importance ‘the sales force has to be up there with R.& D. and the global functions.’”
Schering-Plough is in pharmex, but I believe this is just as true in software.
Like you, I encourage small companies to compete on innovation. If nothing else for the practical reason that small companies will never have the “marketing budget” to support brand positioning like their larger competitors. They will though be able to innovate more quickly than larger companies. Yet No matter how innovative we can become, sales efforts still need to be a critical part of your business’ plan.
10:58 am
Traditional mass marketing grew out of a need to sell the products that came from the growth in mass production. Unfortunately, mass media advertising has never been efficient, or we wouldn’t have heard sayings like, “I know half my advertising is wasted — I just don’t know which half.”
Now that we’re moving back to “conversational marketing” (i.e., sales), it’s important for companies to increase their emphasis on product marketing techniques to create the right products.
The “product marketing manager” is generally the person who has direct, face-to face conversations with prospective customers to learn what they need. This translates into specs for innovative, profitable products that customers will later buy. Companies without a product marketing manager (or brand manager) are missing out on the opportunity to have meaningful, hype-free conversations with customers looking for products to buy.
While the mass media approach to marketing — with it’s inability to demonstrate an ROI — is declining, the need to apply sound marketing principals and sales techniques is more important than ever.