Constructed to serve
The primary concern is that advertising and marketing is commonly outlined by an inventory of duties sometimes prescribed by a senior chief in one other division – typically gross sales. Which means that, whereas advertising and marketing delivers some worth, it has no room to ship distinctive insights or ship extra worth that different senior stakeholders might have delivered or conceived of. In consequence advertising and marketing isn’t at all times seen as worthy of inviting into the room the place large strategic choices are made.
This can be a little bit of a hen and egg situation – whereas the group is structured to serve different elements of the enterprise, advertising and marketing is just not in a position to ship to its full potential. But whereas advertising and marketing isn’t going above and past, the enterprise is unlikely to present it the room it must evolve and develop.
This explains why so many advertising and marketing groups actually are comms group. In case your division is constructed to assist different elements of the enterprise, you’re unlikely to be within the room when such pivotal discussions about pricing and product improvement are held.
A lot of this stems from an absence of actual advertising and marketing management in B2B companies, via no vital fault of their very own. Traditionally there was far much less want for advertising and marketing management in B2B companies, and it’s solely with the globalisation of enterprise and the empowerment of patrons within the final 15-20 years that the necessity to shift focus away from gross sales and in direction of advertising and marketing has begun in earnest.
This meant that, when advertising and marketing was first constructed, it was made to mirror the present constructions inside the enterprise, somewhat than being constructed to fulfill strategic wants and ship probably the most related worth. In an effort to discover a foothold for advertising and marketing to be really impactful.
