It’s the product, stupid …

Andrew Seth

This article argues that the perceived weakness of marketing in the boardroom is not because marketing in complex and 'in transition', but because marketers fail to deliver their core responsibility: strong brands delivering consumer-led growth.

It's the product, stupid ...

Andrew Seth

Marketing people traditionally complain about their unimportance in corporate structures, and bewail their short tenures. Production directors remain in post a lifetime, CFOs are stable as rocks and often graduate to the top job while CMOs last less than two years and sometimes suffer enforced exit. Why?

The fashionable response in western companies is that marketing is complex, demanding to manage and with fast-changing skill-sets. McKinsey's Quarterly(2007/3) 'Marketing in Transition' takes this line. Professionally presented, with its own research, but also from several CMOs (Yahoo!, Nokia, Wal-Mart and Carlsberg) the 'transition'...

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