Retuning the Marketing "Orchestra"

Marketing39s performance too is less than stellar Brand growth has been stagnant for the past decade particularly for legacy brands The portfolio of agencies has been increased each agency quotbest in classquot in its area of expertise TV radio print direct marketing PR eventssponsorship website design email marketing and social media amp160but there39s something missing in the way that the agencies play together like the discordant Bach orchestraIt doesn39t matter if you have the best players in the world Their playing needs to be coordinatedOne problem is the length of time that the orchestra plays together under the conductor CMOs who are blamed by CEOs for the lack of brand growth turn over every 34 years and their replacements tend to change some if not all the resident agencies Each CMO has a unique style and it takes some time for CMOs to come to grips with the brandgrowth problem and coordinate the marketing efforts accordingly Often CMOs are not in place long enough to make a differenceA second problem is the nature of the Scopes of Work amp160the musical scores used by the individual agencies With the increasing use of digital and social media Scopes of Work are becoming more fragmented and distant from the big ideas that ought to define or influence their content Individual agencies are asked to carry out highly tactical highvolume efforts that may not contribute in the slightest way to rekindle brand growthamp160This shows up in the kinds of quotmissionsquot that individual agencies are given on behalf of their clientsHere39s a notsounusual mission for a digital agency working for a new client in a highly competitive industryamp160To be an innovator in the digital space To go from channel extension to channel invention to outmaneuver competitors and break through in a cluttered environment The assumption is that more and better digital innovation of this type will eventually translate into improved brand performanceamp160The jury is out on that issue as it remains to be proven Digital and social innovations hold great promise but there are problems with these media forms as wellThe more that the portfolio of agencies is fragmented by specialty the more likely that agency quotmissionsquot will devolve into multiple tactical wishlists that don39t add up to a coherent wholeIf improved brand performance is the goal then the players in the marketing orchestra need to have the right sheet music in front of them The master Scope of Work if it exists which covers the range of media types needs to have an overall logic just like an orchestral score The competence of the individual players is not the issue the bigger question is how do they sound when they play together each mastering its partThe results to date have been disappointing Marketing departments have not done a good job coordinating their everincreasing portfolios of agencies and designing with or without their help master Scopes of Work that have a high probability of growing brands once againPortfolio simplification is an obvious solution The fewer the agencies the more likely that the agency voice can be influentialamp160and agencies held accountable for broader more strategic goalsamp160Deborah Wahl CMO of McDonald39s in North America went down this path last year during her second year on the job reducing her portfolio of US agencies from quotmanyquot to quotonequot by establishing a new multidimensional Omnicom agency We Are Unlimited and setting its strategic mission as quotincreasing guest counts and salesquot This must not have been enough for McDonald39s top management Deborah and other members of her team were replaced this week April 5 2017 with marketing leaders recruited from PepsiCo and StarbucksGood luck to themCartoon Credit Jack Ziegler The New Yorker The Cartoon Bank With permissionClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this article are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

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Retuning the Marketing "Orchestra"

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Michael Farmer

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Retuning the Marketing "Orchestra"

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