OCTOBER 10 2008 BANDT.COM.AU 19

COMMENT

This business deserves an award for the sheernumber of backslapping nights we have celebratingsuccessful marketing campaigns. You only need towalk into any agency’s reception to realise how muchit means to them. The gongs take centre stage –particularly if the word Cannes or the initials D&AD isinvolved.

But it does beg a question when it comes tocampaigns: Who can rightfully take the credit forawards? Now, I understand a successful marketingcampaign is a collaborative effort across alldisciplines and everyone involved wants a slice – butwho should be holding their head highest comeawards night?

Trying to decipher and rework a badly written brieffrom the client and turn it into a strategy whichsmokes out the elusive consumer is no mean feat. So yes, the strategic planners play an important role. I mean, there are so many wacky interweb things forconsumers to hide behind now that finding the rightstrategy to reach them is pretty damn tough.

Then, of course, the media buyers have to turn thiscrazy strategy stuff into something that’s actuallyexecute-able – always a struggle with an ever-reducing budget and CPM targets which seemimpossible to achieve.

But the razzle-dazzle starts when the creativeagency takes over. All the thinking is suddenlyvisualised as something the client can show theirboss. The anticipation is often quickly diminishedthough, when the first offline is seen and you realisewhat the production budget couldn’t buy.

And let’s not forget about the PR agency. It’s adiscipline that contributes a lot; as long as they’vebeen given something good to work with.

Then, of course, there’s the marketer – reluctantlyinvited to the awards night by the agency despitedelivering a badly written brief, wanting too muchbranding, or having a product that tasted like crap. Butsurely marketers deserve the award. They are therefrom the start to the end, slugging away at everystage along the way. The marketer’s role is to pull thecampaign together into something that resembles‘integration’, herding the agencies like cats, all thewhile convincing their internal stakeholders that it’sworth spending the money rather than dropping it tothe bottom line.

It’s tough. So next time you’re at an awards night,look at the marketer and know that, when all thehangovers wear off, they are the ones that have tocheck the sales report the following day.

And before you say it, yes, I am a marketer.

The annual national conference of the AustralianMarketing Institute is coming up this month, with thetheme “Value Creation Through Marketing”.

Roger James, the AMI chairman, sees the biggestchallenge facing Australian marketers today to bedemonstrating to colleagues that marketing is thesource of value creation in business. “Where do salescome from? What is it that makes for loyalcustomers? How is it that brands are the biggestasset most companies own? The answer is marketing.”

It’s just that marketers haven’t been recognisedfor this role because they have not talked about whatthey do in the language of the board room. To this end,the AMI is launching its new Marketing Metricsproject at the conference, encouraging marketers to become fluent in the language of finance.

However, I firmly believe our most powerfullexicon is the language of the consumer rather thanthe language of finance. And one of the most valuablewords we own in our marketing dictionary is insight.

Every marketing journey should start and end withthe consumer. And it is through market research thatwe facilitate this search for actionable insights aboutthe customer which ultimately guide our marketingstrategies. Insight is where marketing adds the mostvalue to an organisation. Good marketers keep thefinance guys – and indeed the business – honest. Andyes, I know that’s not a word usually associated withthe profession.

Marketers remind the calculator punchers that thecustomer is the one calling the shots these days. Andconsumers don’t for a second view their existence asbeing about keeping corporations in the manner theyare accustomed to.

It’s the responsibility of the marketer to ensuremanagement decision making remains consumer-centric, and the challenge of the marketer is to ensurethe consumer’s voice comes across in the boardroom.

As an example, marketers might advise thebusiness against tinkering with the price of a productor service until the business has a pretty good ideawhat consumers will make of the change. How would a price change alter the value proposition? Financecan’t – and shouldn’t – answer that question.

Marketing creates value for the business on anumber of different levels, but only some of these canbe measured by standard marketing metrics.

When it comes to consumer insight, there is nomarketing metric that does justice to the value ofbeing connected to your customers.

I’ll report back from the AMI annual conference in my next column.

comm

ent

AND THE WINNER IS…….?

WHAT VALUEMARKETING?

TO MAKE ACOMMENT EMAILEDITORIAL@BANDT.COM.AU

Tony ThomasManaging directorThe Population

Adam JosephInsights managerHerald Sun

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