(Credit:
AMC)
What a season finale it was. ‘Shut the Door. Have a Seat’ was a “tight balance of emotionally pungent drama and company coup d’etat,” the LA Times wrote. And indeed, Mad Men came through in the end. And all the mad men and women came through: Sterling, Cooper, Pryce, Pete, Peggy, Joan, and, more than anyone else of course, Don Draper.
He took Conrad Hiltons’s advice to heart and instead of “crying and relying on other people’s moves” he became the master of his fortune and finally did something meaningful. You could see the glow in his eyes, the pride, and the deep satisfaction of someone who has found (or accepted) his calling. “So you like being in advertising after all?” Sterling asked (a rhetorical question). Facing a divorce from his wife and separation from his kids, Draper, for the first time, gained the stature of a man who has a moral compass. With faith both in himself and in others, the boss turned into a leader.
The final scene with the new agency crew gathered in the makeshift hotel room office poignantly displayed that Draper’s evolution mirrored the dramatic changes a whole society was undergoing at the time: Gender equality, democratization of ideas, flat(ter) hierarchies, and employee empowerment, and an angst, underlying all this progress, triggered by JFK’s assassination. “People used to buy things. Then something terrible happened. And people changed. They want different things now. No one really knows how everything’s changed. But you do,” Draper says in his pitch to Peggy, as he’s trying to convince her to join the new venture rising out of the ashes of the firm formerly known as Sterling Cooper. Although set against the backdrop of the early sixties, the Mad Men finale could be read as commentary on the current cultural climate. Times are as transformative as they were back then. The sentiment is equally nervous, and after 9/11 and the Great Recession people are looking for new meaning in a post-materialistic and, sorry Don, post-advertising world.
And yet, Mad Men’s finale represented both swan song and rebirth of an industry. It may be very American to consider every crisis an opportunity, and in this sense, the end of Mad Men season three was a genuinely American happy ending, or better, an ending with the happiest possible departure – the beginning of a whole new story. Peggy, the empathizer and Pete, the innovator, both had tears in their eyes when they were asked to join the new firm, because, at last, they were given the recognition they deserved, and the opportunity to “build something.” Happiness lies in its pursuit, as we all know, and the Mad Men finale reminded us of a great national pastime: If we throw all our talent and passion together, we can build something great. It can be an advertising firm, a movement, or an entire nation.
(Credit:
Cut Chemist)
When I had dinner with my former boss and mentor in Paris a few months ago (formerly vice president of marketing at a US-based enterprise software company, now CEO of a French enterprise software company), he shared a dirty little secret with me: "Forget about marketing," he told me, "it doesn't really matter. I spend 80 percent of my time on HR, finance, operations, and sales. Branding, marketing communications, PR - not my priorities." A few weeks later I came across a working paper called "Getting Marketing Back in the Boardroom," and seeing the title gave me chills. Provided that both the practitioner's view and the academic analysis signify a larger trend prevalent in the industry, then the days of marketing as a corporate function might indeed be numbered.
Is marketing dead or does it just smell bad? The new swan song for marketers is ironic as it comes at a point when the power of marketing seems not only so obvious but also so ubiquitous: Marketing is around us 24/7, marketing paradigms have invaded our private lives ("personal branding," "self-branding"), the blurring boundaries between marketers and consumers have led to the rise of the notion that "everyone is a marketer," and the Americans elected a president whose marketing prowess is widely admired (Advertising Age even voted Barack Obama "Marketer of the Year 2008"). And marketers are complaining about losing influence?
It is not the first time someone is ringing the death knell for this profession. Marketing, almost by definition, finds itself in a permanent crisis. Marketers are accustomed to constantly justifying their efforts. Marketing is an easy target because its targets are constantly moving. Audiences are fickle and their beliefs elusive, and marketers' tools are easily outdated. As in the media business, marketers' wins from the past are old news. What worked yesterday can be wrong tomorrow. Moreover, the lack of a formalized set of rules (as it exists for, say, accounting) makes the discipline prone to advice from all kinds of want-to-be experts from near and far. When so much of a profession is based on knowledge (episteme) and not craft (techne), there will always be those who believe they know more (or know-it-all, for that matter).
Marketing has traditionally been closely scrutinized from other corporate functions, particularly sales, not the least because of the inverse proportional ratio between the visibility of its efforts and the intricacy of quantifying their impact. Even in the heyday of marketing, when it was considered the flagship function in most companies and the fastest track for executives to be groomed to become the next CEO, chief marketing officers (CMOs) found themselves on hot seat. From the late 1990s to 2004, Starbucks appointed a new marketing head five times in seven years, and Coca-Cola changed its CMO four times in six years. This trend is mirrored globally: In a recent CMO survey by the Economist, 63 percent of survey respondents said that the global marketing head at their companies had served for less than three years. The average tenure of CMOs at US companies has shrunk to just 16 months.
But something is different this time around. While marketers have always been under scrutiny for what they do - they are now also being scrutinized for what they are.
A number of voices question the marketer's role today. McKinsey Quarterly believes that marketing executives are grappling with the new social media environment, arguing that "many chief marketers still have narrowly defined roles that emphasize advertising, brand management, and market research." And even marketing guru Seth Godin asks whether "your marketing is out of sync."
It looks as if marketing needs some serious marketing. Conferences that seek to redefine (and thus strengthen) marketing's role are burgeoning: The American Marketing Association offers seminars such as "Beyond Marketing 2.0: Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Marketing Campaign Results," Forrester's Marketing Forum 2008 heralds "engagement" as the profession's "new imperative for success," and the (humbly titled) THE Conference on Marketing aspires to be the penultimate forum for marketing leaders who "seek certainty in experimental times."
Pundits warn that this new crisis of confidence may be existential and usher in the inevitable demise of marketing as a corporate function. Today's CEOs are more and more frequently selected from candidates who have proven their value by rising through the ranks of finance, operations, or sales. Marketing is perceived as "soft," as the consolation prize for sales people who didn't quite advance far enough in their own field to rise to the top.
There is growing concern among marketers about losing influence, as many strategically important aspects of marketing are increasingly distributed across other functions in organizations. A recent CMO survey co-sponsored by the American Marketing Association and the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University indicates that many tasks traditionally ascribed to marketing are no longer primary responsibilities of marketers. While marketers in the surveyed organizations oversee positioning (86%), advertising (92%), promotion (86%), marketing research (86%), competitive intelligence (71%), and market entry (67%), more strategic responsibilities such as new products (48%), market selection (48%), customer relationship management (49%), innovation (39%), pricing (22%), distribution (13%), and customer service (9.5%) have moved to other departments. Even more tellingly, only in six percent of firms marketing is considered to be responsible for stock market performance.
Diana Derval, professor of marketing at the French business school ESSEC and author of the book "Wait Marketing," mocks marketers as a nostalgic class: "The only reason marketing still exists is because of the big lobby power of its professional organizations, especially in the advertising industry," she told me. Derval argues that marketing is a science and not an art, and makes a passionately cold-hearted case against the "myth of marketing genius." She contends that most marketing dollars are squandered by "experimental" marketing efforts that fail to scientifically segment and target their audiences. Her skepticism poses some rather disturbing questions for marketers: If marketing is a science, who still needs marketers? Will marketing soon be taken over by non-marketers?
Marketing is indeed in an existential crisis as it faces unprecedented challenges to its conventions. But I would argue that it is accompanied by new, unprecedented opportunities. Companies have to radically rethink how they do marketing - marketing can no longer be viewed as a collection of programs, but instead as way of behaving in a networked economy of "market communities." The industry has reached a turning point that presents a unique launch pad for marketing to reinvent itself - or to paraphrase German filmmaker Herbert Achternbusch: "You don't have a chance so use it!"
(Credit:
Monocle)
Yes, we live (again) in the "age of conversations." There is something reassuring about listening to smart people having cultured conversations. When I was young, I would listen for hours to music-free radio programming that sounded like black-and-white movies.
Today, Monocle Magazine brought some of that magic back by launching Monocle Weekly, a 30-minute audio podcast. Hosted by editor in chief Tyler Brûlé, the short-form show extends the publication's monthly print content by offering fresh angles on stories in current and past issues, discussions, previews, field reports, and interviews. The light conversations on serious issues are entertaining and informative, and the old-fashioned stereo split of voices evokes the coziness of good old vintage radio.
Highlights of the first issue include FT markets correspondent Rachel Morarjee revealing why 'under the mattress' has become a favorite place to keep your savings (at least in the UK), and philosopher Alain de Botton explaining why happiness will be more important than watching your salary in 2009: "There is no wealth but life, so concentrate on your portfolio of life, and not your portfolio of cash."
Well said. Although this may not be the most effective response to someone who just lost his or her job, the longing for new meaning in private and public life ("why exactly do we work?") will likely be an overarching theme in the forthcoming year. This presents a huge opportunity for brands of all kinds and industries: they are the arbiters of meaning.
Listen yourself: http://monocle.com/The-Monocle-Weekly/ (also available on iTunes)
(Credit:
Dwi)
I asked my colleagues in frog design's Shanghai studio about their perspective on the current economic downturn, and here's what they wrote back:
"The US may be the initiator of this round of global economic recession but it may not be the final payer. China's economy is about to suffer as well - and in more ways than one.
And yet, the people who have been around the longest know not to pay too much attention to one-direction comments. They know that the sufferers will always shout much louder than the beneficiaries. They also know that there are ways to take advantage of the economic downturn.
In China, the rule of the game is always "Stay One Step Ahead of Your Competitors." There are some companies in this country - mostly the ones that operate domestically only - that will remain silent. Culturally it's what they've always done and what they always will do when facing these situations. Other companies will be more pro-active.
For example, when Chinese businesses run out of initiatives in which to invest their capital or when their investments stop growing (which is happening in stocks and real estate, two markets that have yielded big returns in recent years), they make a concerted effort to get back to the basics and invest in research and development. In fact, senior executives in some companies have said publicly that in the near future they would either invest in their own health and personal happiness, or they would increase R&D budgets in their businesses to invest in better products to prepare for a new run when the downturn ends.
This may be a survival strategy - that is, a strategy shift from the short term to the long term - but surviving a crisis is better than suffering from it. While the current crisis is eliminating big and small market players still trying to eke out short term gains in the form of cost cutting measures, the survivors will ride out the crisis while positioning themselves to win in the long term. The economic recession in Hong Kong fifteen years ago is a great example. In 1993, business opportunity in Shanghai was largely non-existent, but that didn't stop one Hong Kong property developer from buying cheap land and developing it in the center of the city. He envisioned Shanghai as the hub of Asia and the future of China, and he turned out to be right. He now owns several of the buildings in the heart of the Central Business District. The real estate developer's strategic long-term vision not only saved his company from the economic recession in Hong Kong, it also made him one of the biggest market players in the mainland property market.
So, while big global marketers withdraw themselves from the game, Chinese brands have a good opportunity to step up by investing money in R&D and product innovation, which will bring to market world-class products. The entrepreneur spirit always involves a combination of risk taking and long-term strategic planning, and indeed, the Chinese people have proven themselves and excelled as entrepreneurs. The reformation opened China's door to the world, and the skyrocketing economy created a Chinese "Gold Rush" that lured the world to underpriced real estate, amenable trade laws, and a surge of capital into the stock market. Now the challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is finding opportunity in more unconventional places.
It could be that in the coming months and years, businesses in China will reinforce the domestic market as a way to fend off the global reverberations from the economic downturn. Domestic companies could add Western assets at a good value. More importantly, though, China can leverage the economic gains it has made over the past ten years into more investments in domestic R&D and innovation. This puts a premium on vision and strategic planning instead of short-term financial risk taking, and ultimately, that's going to benefit everyone, even as some will suffer now."
The rankings were calculated from both publicly available data and the Executive Opinion Survey, a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum together with its network of Partner Institutes (leading research institutes and business organizations) in the countries covered by the report.
"In an uncertain global financial environment it is more important than ever for countries to put into place the fundamentals underpinning economic growth and development. The World Economic Forum has for many years played a facilitating role in this process by providing detailed assessments of the productive potential of nations worldwide. The Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009 offers policy-makers and business leaders an important tool in the formulation of improved economic policies and institutional reforms," noted Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum.
So is there no "innovation gap" after all?
BusinessWeek's Bruce Nussbaum comments that "The U.S. is still great at innovation but bad at economic management. This is important to understand as we move forward and create a National Innovation Policy."
What do practitioners think? We at frog design conducted a country-wide blitz mini-survey among our employees. Within one hour more than 50 "frogs" responded (crowdsourcing really does work), and as it turns out our employees aren't so sure there is a gap - yet. Those who did think we've found ourselves in an idea lull pointed to everything from education to government to the fact that there are too many chairs in company conference rooms as reasons why. There were many other interesting thoughts.
We will publish the results of the survey on Friday. Stay tuned.
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