Marcoms & The Board

John Caswell's post on changing the way people think about marcoms strategic contribution is a perfect prompt for the industry to engage in a serious debate about credibility and substance. The language of marcom professionals and the language of the board are, typically, two entirely different things. We have to discuss reputation in value terms. We need to link our activities to business objectives and strategies. We often get it right in the planning, but not in measurement. So, its back to the old chestnut... have we moved forward on this at all?

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1. At 16 Oct 2007 14:41, Gabbi Cahane wrote:

I think it depends on your discipline. I know that much of the work I do in brand consultancy and coporate reporting is intimately tied into the language and objectives of the boardroom. However there is a lot of suspicion about what marketing services businesses are actually selling. The blame is to be laid firmly at the door of the agencies themselves in my opinion, lack of clarity around offer, lack of positioning, lack of value placed on our expertise (see my rant about free pitching) and a desire to be all things to all clients are some of the issues I see regularly. I agree that solid measurement helps to make sense of some of these problems, but unless we sell ourselves properly we have often lost the battle before it has begun.
2. At 19 Oct 2007 12:04, Jay O'Connor wrote:

I agree with the lack of value placed on expertise. There are also different maturity levels in the marcoms industry - CMOs make the board, but PR heads don't typically. Articulation of value and measurement for the PR slice of the pie is the challenge. Which brings us to the question of integration within the discipline....

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