News release from The Worshipful Company of Marketors
Marketors Seminar #2 – April 7, 2007
Value Based Marketing – making a financial contribution
Marketing needs to recruit more commercially astute people who can equip themselves with better tools to cure the curse of Lord Leverhulme “I know half my marketing is wasted, but I don’t know which half”, according to Professor Robert Shaw. Professor Shaw was presenting the second of the Worshipful Company of Marketors’ 2007 seminar series (07.04.07), and it proved as lively an issue as the first *.
The renowned business author and visiting professor at Cass Business School addressed a mixed audience of marketing and finance professionals with his examination of how companies are approaching the challenge of making marketing accountable for its financial contribution. Professor Shaw put forward his own model ‘Value Based Marketing’ – a management system for marketing to grow its financial contribution. It is based on studying practices in over 100 large companies in a cross section of industries.
Four factors are important, according to Shaw’s assessment. One is the recruitment of marketing practitioners who are proven to be commercially astute, but as several members of the audience agreed, ‘commercially astute’ was a phrase rarely to be seen in job advertisements in the sector. Secondly, knowledge of marketing’s financial effects must be accumulated and this has led leading firms to invest in techniques such as econometric analysis. Decision-support models are also being adopted by leading organisations and finally new information systems are needed that go beyond the CRM and ERP systems that are widespread in business today. Shaw contrasted good and bad practice in all four areas.
A lively discussion followed the event, chaired by Professor Vince Mitchell, head of marketing at Cass and involving a panel made up of Rob Bryant, the UK Customer Management practice head for Deloitte, Ray Perry, director of brand for the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and Fiona Stewart – the founder of antennae and former CEO of Opinion Leader Research.
The traditional marketing management career might once have started at companies such as Unilever or Mars, or a similarly branded blue chip, with a spell in sales, then production, or even manufacturing – but these days people generally change jobs every few years. So how do we find these wide-ranging, commercially astute marketing people who have more than simply a superficial knowledge of finance – those that know the broader management disciplines – rather than simply churning out more marketing communications people who see fads and celebrity as the main purpose, and attraction, of the sector?
There is a journey to be made, said Professor Shaw, from the ‘old guard’ ideas to the new ideal of making the marketing department accountable. But would this be evolution, or was it going to be necessary to have a ‘revolutionary clearout’ and start anew? Shaw cited evidence that some CEOs are becoming impatient with marketing and are planning to impose substantial changes to people and processes.
The meeting was a stimulating continuation of the series of seminars, initiated by the Worshipful Company of Marketors’ Think Tank, the theme of which is Marketing Entrepreneurship in the City. Master of the Marketors’ Company, Keith Arundale, has pointed out that only 14 per cent of FTSE 100 companies have a marketing director on their boards and only 17 per cent of FTSE 100 CEOs have a background in marketing. It’s hoped that bringing the issues raised in the seminar series to an audience of analysts, accountants and the City will further the cause of marketing as a vital if intangible asset.
The next seminar in the series will be led by Master Marketor Keith Arundale in June on the subject of Venture Capital for Marketers.
* Involving Shareholders in Marketing, Tim Ambler.
ENDS
Photo: Photos taken at event – contact Shirley Barett, prprojects [Email: prprojects #AT# aol.com - replace #AT# with @]
or tel. 0208 202 7821
Issued by Shirley Barnett 0208 202 7821 prprojects [Email: prprojects #AT# aol.com - replace #AT# with @]
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