ANA Marketing Musings

Continuous Marketing Reinvention

My final top-10 expectation for 2007 – continuous marketing reinvention – wraps the previous nine with a big red bow. Continuous marketing reinvention is the theme that’s driving all components of the marketing process towards greater efficiency, consumer-relevance and, most importantly, business performance.

I believe it must become the mantra of marketing executives and the cornerstone philosophy for a new kind of strategic platform that totally reinvents:

• The way brands are built

• The methods for integrating all marketing disciplines

• The approach to marketing accountability

• The structure of the marketing organization

In reinventing the discipline of marketing, senior marketing executives will need to address all nine transformations about which I have previously blogged. They must:

• Realize that the consumer is in control – and act on this new fact

• Create a new agenda for agencies

• Connect the CMO with the CEO’s agenda

• Include unconventional outreach in all marketing programs

• Transform media buying and selling

• Find common ground with government policymakers and consumer advocacy groups

• Renew the traditional research function as the foundation of marketing accountability

• Modify business systems and back office operations

By embracing these changes, marketers will ultimately create a more innovative, flexible, powerful and accountable marketing organization.

Blow up the Back Room

As we continue our discussion of the top ten ways marketing will be transformed, I am compelled to focus on an area that many feel is unglamorous, uncreative and – regrettably – unimportant. I’m talking about the systems, processes and administrative functions that are collectively and, I might add, often disparagingly referred to as “the back room.”

Well it turns out the “back room” is actually extremely important to the “front office.” Its functions and responsibilities can potentially add huge value to the marketing process while, at the same time, saving millions of dollars and thousands of hours. New approaches and new technologies are transforming every other aspect of the marketing process. So too will they reinvent the role of the back office.

Let’s start off with some definitions and foundations. The “marketing supply chain” is the continuum that starts with the development of marketing strategy, spans into the creative, evolves into the execution, is distributed to the media and ultimately shown to the public. Yes, that’s a very simplistic overview, but I think it conveys the concept.

So what do I mean when I say the “back room”? I’m speaking largely about the management of advertising assets, including the processes for “manufacturing” ads, trafficking them through the agencies to the media, as well as billing and paying for all services rendered. Kind of grimy stuff, eh?