Commentary: CEOs often don't understand marketing

Positioning father/Ais Riss (for "it Times") in assessing corporate strategy, managers and marketers often disagree. Smart CEOs who are in a strong position, there is often a very distorted understanding of marketing, it is extremely difficult to put this idea, which will eventually cause incalculable losses to the company Starbucks, Red Bull, Rolex, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Dyson electrical appliances, Godiva chocolate ... They are among the highest priced brands in their category.　　But high prices are not necessarily bad. One of the definitions of the brand is to make the customer willing to spend more money than the same goods to buy your products or services.　　On the contrary, if consumers are unwilling to spend more money to buy your brand in the choice of a similar product, you can't really have a brand--it's just a name product. The neglected marketing from GE in New York to Disney in Los Angeles, the board of directors across the United States, is like a thick velvet curtain that separates the marketers from the management pie.　　This is a difficult mystery. "Marketing is too important," said David Pacard, one of HP's founders. "The real marketing department can afford it."　　"But for management executives, marketing is too complex, and managers often don't have any marketing experience, and they don't know anything about marketing laws." The gap is becoming wider now.　　For a team that wants to be successful in business or athletic sports, it seriously weakens internal cohesion. "Everyone for me, for everyone", this old maxim, it is difficult to hear in the corridors of the Office of American Enterprises today. In most companies, the management faction of left brain thinking and the marketing faction of right brain thinking are always in a state of war.　　However, it is of no benefit to the company, to their respective professions, to their customers, and even to the economy as a whole. Deloitte has made in-depth visits to 217 executives in five countries in Europe. According to the firm's report, "the vast majority of CEOs think their businesses understand the role of marketing, but other senior managers and marketing teams are adamantly opposed." "Fortune" has exaggerated this gap. To celebrate the 75 anniversary, the magazine lists "75 books to teach you about what you have to know about business." But how many of these 75 books are related to marketing?　　Obviously, they think that marketing is not one of the "things that you have to know" in business, because none of the marketing books are included. Welch, the former CEO of GE, who was hailed as "the best manager of the 20th Century" by Fortune magazine, in his two best-selling books, Welch autobiography and Win, did he mention the marketing content?　　Hardly. However, he wrote a lot about human resources management. "Human resources managers should be the second most important person in an organization." "(He is really busy and can replace the marketing directors who normally serve only 26 months.)Of course, Welch is doing very well at GE. But one of the reasons is that he doesn't have to worry about marketing issues because GE is already a very powerful brand.　　Would it be the same if Mr Welch were to run Chrysler? Bridging the gap as marketers, we are very sympathetic to the marketing executives in the enterprise.　　However, our revenue must depend on the CEO who hires us to provide marketing strategies for our company. As a marketing strategy consultancy, we are happy (and painful) to work for hundreds of companies in different industries.　　Usually the CEO of the company hires us, usually the CEO lists the problems the company is facing, and often the CEO decides whether to accept our advice. So where are the marketing staff of these companies? They are basically sitting on one side of the table and sitting on the other side of the company's senior management. Between the two sides is the velvet curtain. I wrote this to try to put the velvet curtain away and bridge the gap.　　Help the marketing faction understand the management faction, also helps the management to understand the marketing faction. As a marketing consultant, you may think that we are often providing strategic and tactical advice for our clients ' marketing programs. That is not the case.　　We need to spend a lot of time explaining the marketing rules to management. Most CEOs are extremely intelligent.　　A dim bulb is hard to brighten up the corner of the office, and when CEOs understand what marketing can do, they know what to do. Unfortunately, smart CEOs have a very distorted understanding of marketing.　　It is difficult to put forward these ideas, because have a strong logic of the left brain thinking management, all the knowledge of marketing is wrong. In fact, a company is in a bind because they hire CEOs who have learned and common sense and are hard to change their minds, and CEOs who know little or nothing about marketing. Take the Chrysler company. Chrysler's sales fell 7% in 2006, and the company lost 1.5 billion dollars.　　This is one of the reasons Daimler eventually handed the company over to Cybernaut Asset Management in 2007. What did Cybernaut do next?　　They hired Robert Nadley, the former chief executive of Home Depot, to lead Chrysler out of trouble. What does Mr. Nardelli specialize in?　　According to newspaper reports, he is a "cost-cutting, mass production" experts. Chrysler plans to cut 13,000 jobs. Mr. Nardelli the management approach: "Do it faster and more efficiently, that's what we want." "Not fast enough?" Not efficient? Is this Chrysler's problem? Every marketer knows what the problem is with Chrysler. It is not a problem of mass production, nor is it a question of price. Tell me one reason why you would buy a Chrysler car.　　I can't tell you, can you? Chrysler's marketing problems have made Chrysler cheaper and faster, andCannot solve the problem.　　Chrysler, by contrast, has sold cheaper than Toyota, Honda and Nissan. It is generally difficult for CEOs to recognize marketing problems. The reason you become CEO is because you love your business and show your loyalty to your brand forever.　　In your heart, even a layman, will pay homage to your corporate brand. As Nardelli added to Chrysler: "I'm not just coming for revenue, it's about bringing it to its rightful place with the incredibly admired Chrysler brand." "But how can you solve a problem if you don't even recognize it?" Does the marketing faction think that Chrysler is an "endless cult" brand?　　Mercedes-Benz is about the same, but what about Chrysler? From a marketing point of view, most Chrysler brands are a mess. What is Chrysler? is not the expensive PT Rambler (Ptcruiser) or the expensive Chrysler 300? What is Dodge (Dodge)?　　Is it a cheap car or an expensive truck?　　However, according to the company's "commonsense" thinking, they need a full range of products, using their brand name to do marketing. A few years ago, when Chrysler bought an American car company, it was a mess. The only brand with a higher degree of recognition is the Jeep. Even so, American car companies believe that their Jeep dealers should also sell eagle cars. After the acquisition, Chrysler retained the American car company brand only Jeep.　　The rest were left in the historical parking garage. One is management-led action, the other is marketing-led action. As early as 1998, Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler at a price of 36 billion dollars.　　The Herald of International Tribune called it "a landmark deal in the future blueprint of the global automotive industry". What does that sound like?　　For us, it sounds like a typical left-brain management measure.　　The right brain marketing approach is the opposite: a German-American auto company sells cheap cars and expensive cars? Intuitively, it means nothing to marketing. It doesn't make any sense to finance.