Spanning silos: a marketing imperative

David Aaker

The article describes a research study which identified at least six problems created or worsened by the silo structure (organisational units with their own management teams).

Spanning silos: a marketing imperative

David AakerProphet

Virtually all organisations from IBM to HP to Unilever to CitiGroup, are collections of silos – organisational units that have their own management team. Product silos, are business units defined by product or service offerings and country silos, are geographic silos defined by countries or regions. In addition, there are functional marketing and communication silos striving, often in vain, to achieve integrated marketing communication.

Most organisations are proud of their decentralised product and country structure, and with good reason. Decentralisation potentially involves management teams that are intimate with customers and markets, conversant...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands