Marketing Promotion: Don't let the management faction and the marketing faction opposite

From General Electric in New York to Disney in Los Angeles, companies across the United States have a velvet curtain that separates marketers from managers.

This is a puzzle that is difficult to solve. "Marketing is too important," said David Packard, one of Hewlett-Packard's founders, David Pacard. "You can't leave it to marketers." ”

On the other hand, marketing is too complex for the management faction, especially the management faction has little marketing experience, and the marketing law is ignorant.

The gap between the two

The chasm is getting wider. For a team that wants to succeed in business or sports, it seriously weakens internal cohesion.

The old motto, "Everyone for me, for everyone" is hard to hear in the corridors of American corporate offices 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. It's not good for companies, for their careers, for customers, or even for the economy as a whole.

Deloitte's accounting Firm (Deloitte) recently made in-depth visits to 217 executives in 5 European countries. According to the firm's report, "the vast majority of CEOs think their corporate institutions understand the role of marketing, and the rest of the senior executives and marketing teams we investigate are strongly opposed to it."

Wealth magazine exaggerates this gap. To celebrate the 75 anniversary, the publishing house lists "75 books to teach you about what you have to know about business."

How many of these 75 books are related to marketing? Obviously, marketing isn't one of the things you need to know about business, because marketing books aren't included.

Welch (Jack 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" (Straight from Gut) and "Win" (Winning) What about marketing?

Hardly.

However, he wrote a lot about human resources management, "the human resource manager should be the second most important person in the corporate organization" (indeed a busy person who can replace the chief marketing officer who normally has a 26-month term).

Welch is doing a great job at GE. One of the reasons, of course, is that he doesn't have to worry about marketing issues, because GE is already a very powerful brand.

If Mr Welch were to run Chrysler (Chrysler), the result would be different.

Our compassion vs. our financial

As a marketing faction, our compassion is with the marketing executives. But our finances depend on the executives who hire us to provide marketing strategies for our companies.

As a marketing consultant, we are happy (and painful) to work with hundreds of companies from 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 proposal.

So where are the marketing of the companies that we offer strategic advice to? They are basically sitting on one side of the table and sitting on the other side of the company's management pie. Between the two sides is the velvet curtain.

We write this book to try to put this velvet curtain up, to bridge the gap between the two sides to help the marketing to understand the management faction, but also to help management to understand the marketing pie.

Chief executive officer of Education

As a marketing consultant, you may think that we are often providing strategic and tactical advice for our clients ' marketing programs. But the truth is not. We spend a lot of time teaching marketing rules to management.

Most CEOs are extremely intelligent. A dim bulb could hardly illuminate the corner of the office. When the CEO understands what marketing can (and can't) do, the CEO often knows what to do.

Unfortunately, the most intelligent CEOs also have a very distorted understanding of marketing.

It is difficult to correct those ideas because of the logic of the left Brain thinking Management party marketing All the knowledge is wrong.

Marketing is not "common sense", nor is it easy to learn. If it is, then there is no need to hire a chief marketing officer. It would be good to let the company's "commonsense" thinking management be assigned to the business marketing affairs.

Companies are stuck in a row because they hire CEOs who have learned and common sense and have trouble changing 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 why Daimler eventually handed the company over to Cybernaut Asset management company (Cerberus Capital Management) in 2007.

What did Cybernaut do next? They hired Robert Nardelli, the former chief executive of Home Depot, to lead Chrysler out of the woods.

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: "If we can do it faster and more efficiently, and that's what we want to do, we can do it." ”

Not fast enough? Is it the Chrysler problem? Every marketing faction knows what the problem is with Chrysler. It is not a problem of mass production, nor is it a question of price.

Please name a reason for buying a Chrysler car. We can't tell, can you?

Chrysler has a marketing problem

Making Chrysler cheaper and faster will not solve the problem. Chrysler, by contrast, has been priced more cheaply than Toyota, Honda and Nissan.

When the CEO realizes the marketing problem, his life is not very good. To be a CEO, you have to love your business and express your permanent loyalty to the company's brand.

Even a layman must pay homage to the company's brand.

As Nardelli joined Chrysler: "It's not just about finance, it's about bringing the most admired Chrysler brand to its rightful place." ”

How can you solve a problem if you don't recognize it? Does the marketing faction think that Chrysler is an "endless cult" brand?

Mercedes-Benz (Benz) is similar, but what about Chrysler?

From a marketing standpoint, most Chrysler brands are a mess. What is Chrysler? is not the expensive PT Rambler (PT Cruiser) or the expensive Chrysler 300?

What is Dodge (Dodge)? Is it a cheap car or an expensive truck? or vice versa?

However, according to the company's "common sense" thinking, they need a full range of products, using their brand name to do marketing.

A few years ago, when Chrysler acquired the American Auto Company (Anglo Motors), the company was a mess. The only American car company with a strong sense of awareness is Jeep (jeep) [Even at the time, American car companies thought their Jeep dealers should also sell Eagle cars].

After the acquisition, Chrysler retained the brand of the American Car company only Jeep, the rest are parked in the historical parking garage.

Two different "measures" in trading

One is management-style, the other is marketing-style measures.

Daimler-Benz (upscale) bought Chrysler in 1998 at a price of 36 billion dollars. The International Forum Herald (Analysys Herald Tribune) called it "a landmark deal on the future blueprint of the global auto industry".

What does that sound like? To 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 has little meaning for finance. After selling Chrysler to Cybernaut Asset Management in a complex deal, according to our estimates, Daimler spent $1.6 billion on $36 billion trillion (recently Daimler has reduced the value of Chrysler's shares to 0).

Why is Chrysler's takeover a disaster for Daimler? Because it is a decision made by a management faction that does not understand the importance of marketing.

The management faction (and their merger-acquisition coalition) wants to tie two companies together to complement each other. Through this way, to fight for a bigger potential market.

That's true. But the marketing group points out that such mergers can ruin the brand. Daimler-Chrysler is a car company that lacks reliability and distinctive features. How does Daimler-Chrysler build its brand on such a weak footing [as a combination of Coca-Cola (COLA) and Eastman Kodak (Eastman Kodak) to produce a big, tasty – Kodak joint venture]?

Low vs. High price

The management of left-brain logic wants to do performance, so they emphasize reducing costs and mass production.

The right brain intuitive thinking marketing faction wants to build a brand. Often the best way to build a brand is to have the product priced higher than the competitor, so that your brand will have a "better product" perception.

For example, Starbucks (Starbucks), Red Bull Bull, Absolute Vodka (Absolut), Grey Goose Vodka (grey Goose), Rolex (Rolex), Lexus (Lexus), Mercedes-Benz, PhD (Bose), Dyson Electric ( Dyson), Evian (Evian), Grey poupon mustard sauce, Godiva chocolate (Godiva) and many other brands.

High prices are not necessarily bad. One of the definitions of the brand is to make customers willing to buy products or services that are more money than they would buy for similar items.

If consumers are unwilling to spend more money to buy your brand in the choice of similar products, then you can't really have a brand, you have a name only.

Federal Express's early history illustrates the difference between a management approach and a marketing approach-in other words, the difference between a price war and a brand battle.

In the early days, FedEx tried to fight a price war with air cargo leader Amory Air transport Company (Emery Air Freight). FedEx each service (overnight delivery, the next day delivery, 3rd delivery) than Amory corresponding service costs are lower.

But its strategy did not work. In the first three years, FedEx lost 2 9 million dollars.

After that, entrepreneur Fred (Fred Smith) changed the brand marketing approach. He focused on the "overnight delivery" service, and the advertising budget increased by 5 times times, in the advertisement played a brand slogan "Absolutely, certainly for you overnight delivery."

Then came the astonishing shift. FedEx led the overnight service and became a larger enterprise than Amory.

Ironically, FedEx never gave up its next-day delivery and 3rd service. You can still see these services on its bill of lading.

But from a cognitive point of view, FedEx is still "overnight delivery" of the courier service.

Expansion vs. reduction

In assessing the company's strategy, the management and marketing factions become separate poles.

The first idea of the management of left-brain thinking is to expand the business. At home, Mr Nardelli's first move was to expand its building materials supply business by acquiring about 25 wholesale suppliers (Home Depot eventually sold the business).

The first idea of the marketer of right brain thinking is often focus. If you can't represent a thing in the consumer's mind, you can't build a brand. Usually the best approach is to represent a single service or have a unique attribute.

If FedEx hired an expert who insists on "cutting costs, mass production" as CEO, what would be the FedEx today?

Maybe it's the same situation as Chrysler.

Let's put the velvet curtain away and let our management know about the marketing pie and let the marketers know about the management pie.