#BizTrends2020: The need to prove that marketing is business™

Dale Hefer, Integrated Marketing Conference (IMC) CEO.

But marketing still doesn’t sit with the grown-ups around the boardroom table. We’re used to the last five minutes of the conference call, and being first to tighten our belts when it comes to the budget cuts.


In fact, advertising has been rated below politics as a trustworthy profession and, according to a recent survey, 77% of brands wouldn’t be missed if they disappeared overnight. Right now, both marketing and its servant, advertising, are in trouble, with 800-million people reported to have installed ad blockers on their devices.

The trend is for marketers to prove that the only way to get marketing back into the box seats is to show that it boosts the bottom line and prove that it works.


As marketers, we need to engage more formally with our peers across the different business divisions and demonstrate our capacity for measurement and delivery across specified objectives.

The business imperative should remain the focus of these relationships, with the value that marketing brings to customers and the business being the focus. Strategy development should be informed by the external environment. An understanding of the local market is essential in order to create business and to produce financial and long-term benefits in support of the business objectives.

The local environment in which the brand and agency operate is complex and diverse, and so an authentic understanding of the market should drive a brand to produce an engaging campaign that will connect with customers. The return on investment for a campaign should be effectively measured. Growing the bottom line is a key performance area; and the brand, all its business divisions, the agency, and the relationship between them are important for these results.

Sources:

• Nedbank IMC White Paper 2019
• Marketing is Business™ - IMC Academy (Pty) Ltd
• Brand Finance’s Global Intangible Finance Tracker (GIFT) 2018
• Advertising Association’s Public Trust Paper
• Ipsos Mori’s Veracity Index