Blog entry #19 from www.mba-marketing.co.uk

If business and the economy are broke, is marketing the solution?

As we face the worst economic situation since the end of WW2, what has marketing got to offer?

Was marketing no more than the froth on the surface of out-of-control capitalism, tolerated while the economy grew, and irrelevant now?

To start with, let’s look at the current edition of ‘The Marketer’, the official magazine of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the self-styled ‘leading international body for marketing and business development’. Can we expect incisive thought leadership, with marketing as the saviour of business and the global economy?

Errr, no. The tone is set in the leader article, where the Editor suggests that we should offer something called ‘microfreebies’ in order to delight our customers, because ‘in the downturn businesses are going to need all the friends they can find.’ So far, so very unenlightening.

Later in the same publication, David Haigh reminds us that banks have led the way to the devaluation of the whole brand concept, with their ‘cynical disregard for customers and staff’. Taking his argument further, one could argue that 'marketing' as practised by most companies has been little more than a diversionary tactic for business practices which have been at best incompetent and at worst immoral.

So what exactly have marketers been doing while capitalism failed? The usual irrelevant fluff, apparently, as highlighted by one of the largest features in the magazine. Step forward Royal Sun Alliance, who decided to ‘re-brand’ themselves via an extensive process leading to a shortened brand name (‘RSA’) and a change of ‘logo livery’ (that's colour to you and me) to the ‘more modern’ magenta and purple. In the finest traditions of old-school marketing, numerous presentations were made to employees, telling them what management expected - ‘how we therefore wanted our workers to behave’, as marketing and customer director Claire Salmon elegantly put it, with all the finesse of a Victorian mill-owner. Needless to say, the success of all this can only be assessed in terms of our old friend ‘anecdotal evidence’.

So does anyone in the magazine – which is after all the organ of the ‘leading international body for marketing’ - have any solutions?

Well, the usual trivial, inaccurate and unintelligent observations continue to be peddled. For example, someone called Nik Margolis of an agency you haven’t heard of tells us that ‘there’s a three-second rule with DM – you’ve got that long to make them open it’. And you thought direct marketing helped build relationships, create dialogue, build engagement? No, it’s about making ‘them’ open mailing packs.

Fortunately, Seth Godin, the ‘new marketing’ guru is on hand, in an interview on the back pages. In his current book, ‘Meatball Sundae’, he states that the question for any thriving 21st century business must be: 'How can we alter our business to become an organization that thrives on new marketing?' And in his new book, ‘Tribes’, he argues that ‘the new marketing is about leadership’ – creating a following for what an organisation does.

Thanks, Seth. Thanks Chartered Institute of Marketing. You're not even asking the right questions yet, let alone giving us answers.