By Barbara Bacci Mirque 
One of the projects on which I am currently working with Booz Allen Hamilton is a look forward at the 2010 marketing media ecosystem and how marketers should navigate that future marketing landscape from a marketing skills, strategy, talent and organization perspective. You will hear more about that from me in the coming months.
This past week-end I took a look back as I attended a reunion of 1980’s Frito-Lay marketers. After five years US Senate work experience, in July of 1982 I arrived at Frito-Lay headquarters on Harry Hines Boulevard in Dallas - NYU MBA in hand - to start a position as assistant product manager on the Chee-tos Brand.
Almost 25 years to the day later, I was reminiscing with one of my best friends and my beloved Chee-tos boss and colleagues at the lovely Chicago home of a very gracious food company CMO.
What a different time that was to be in marketing! We could reach over 80% of our target audience with a commercial frequency of 3! Cable was not on our radar screen and “radio merchandising” was the new frontier we were conquering.
No one had heard of the concept of casual dress at Frito in the 80’s- pink or even striped shirts on men were considered a radical departure from grey suits, power ties and long sleeved white shirts. Women dressed in man tailored grey suits with white ruffled shirts and silk bow ties.
Neither emails – nor even voicemail – were productivity tools available to us. Marketing software? We did our product forecasting on adding machines. And when you returned from lunch meetings you were greeted with piles of pink “while you were out” slips. Due to the formidable Frito-Lay direct store delivery system we had a proprietary data delivery system that honed the analytical skills of minions - the Frito “lower class” that we assistant product managers proudly referred to ourselves as. We worked hard and played hard and the connections among us that still existed were palpable – even among people who may not have seen each other for over 20 years.
I am berating myself for having lost touch with some of my amazing colleagues and grateful for the opportunity to reconnect. Some are living on farms in Vermont, going to divinity school, or pursuing doctorates. Others are stay - at -home - Moms, consultants, newspaper journalists and writers. One gal re-entered the marketing sphere due to her Frito network, nine years after taking the “mommy track.” Others are CEOs and CMOs at the Fortune 100. One is a marketing legend - now back in the game as CEO of a major food company - who left a very high level job at the peak of her career to spend more time with her family.
So for you newly minted marketers starting your first marketing job, I envy you. You are entering the marketing discipline at an exciting time. The speed of change in the last five years surpasses much of what I have seen during the last 20. In many ways you need to be a much more nimble marketer than I had to be in the 80’s. Not only must you be facile in marketing but you must be proficient in technology, finance and marketing metrics. The ANA is an excellent resource for you as you strive to keep pace with what is occurring in the marketing industry so I encourage you to take advantage of our deep insights.
Don’t forget to master one other skill and that is to develop lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with the people with whom you work. Even in the 21st century the human factor is an important one, albeit today it is facilitated by technology.
As you move on to your next job – whereas I had to rely on the telephone and snail mail to keep abreast of my former colleagues - social networking sites and email easily keep you in touch with the colleagues you leave behind.
Now excuse me but I have to go update my LinkedIn profile so I can keep the conversation going with my rekindled Frito-Lay friendships.
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