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Vinay Kamath

Chennai , Feb. 16

MARKETING today, many companies realise, is more relevant than ever. However, while there is a lot of rhetoric, the truth is that in many boardrooms marketing is on the sidelines and is still regarded as just one of the elements.

"It is not the centrepiece; we still have a long way to go," said Dr Erich Joachimsthaler, CEO, Vivaldi Partners, and the keynote speaker at the Brand Summit beginning here on Thursday.

"Look at the US, or Europe, how many marketing-trained CEOs actually exist outside of the consumer products companies. So there is a long way to go before putting the brand and marketing into the boardroom," he said in an interview to Business Line on the eve of the Summit.

However, having said that, Dr Joachimsthaler says that the realisation is slowly dawning that branding has to be a CEO initiative, but it cannot be the traditional approach where a company took a product, put a name and a packaging on it and then developed some emotional or functional associations with it. CEOs are realising that the branding is becoming the face of business strategy, he added.

Referring to the disconnect between marketing officers and the CEOs in the US, he said a new tribe of super chief marketing officers (CMOs) has emerged who are celebrated all over the US.

However, he said that they typically come from an advertising planning background and their advertising-led agenda is far from the CEO agenda.

"The CEO's agenda is topline and bottomline growth, every quarter, profitability and stock markets," he said. So unless a new generation of CMOs come out, who are not in the advertising mould, life could remain the same.

Today, most CMOs, said Dr Joachimsthaler, do not have the capabilities to handle what it requires to do the marketing job. "Most CMOs in position today cannot really articulate or have the breadth of vision — and it is also extremely hard for them to have the breadth — as marketing has become multi-faceted today, it's no longer a simple trick." The point he stressed, is that branding today is multi-functional and cannot be advertising-led.

Dr Joachimsthaler, co-author of the best selling book Brand Leadership with David Aaker, said that there is a big movement now in rediscovering consumers lives which stretches far beyond demographic and psychographic profiles.

He talked about Vivaldi Partners' assignment for foods major Nestle which involved it talking to consumers about their daily lives and their relationship with food.

The revelation was that brands did not occupy much mindspace in consumers, but revolved around other interests in life. Now, he said, it was up to companies to develop products which fit into consumers' lives rather than develop products which they think consumers will want.

"It's almost politically correct to talk about consumers, and companies talk about it in their annual reports; but today there is a new way of driving strategy from the consumers' end and that is not happening," he added.

Referring to the 360-degree branding approach that several companies claim to follow, Dr Joachimsthaler said that it has become a valid consulting offering.

However, from a consultant's viewpoint, it becomes an exercise of three-four months of study, and then they come up with ideas for each consumer touchpoint.

"And then you align the brand or align the touchpoint across the brand strategy and then what happens is that the implementation of that often doesn't happen in a company; what I've found is the better thing to do is instead of 360 degree, you do only 90 degrees or 45 degrees and then immediately implement it and you keep going, otherwise it becomes an academic study or a consulting project which is not acted on - so, in order to get results fast, look at the lowest hanging fruits and then build your 360-degree branding exercise over time."

He recommends that companies do it in incremental stages otherwise they are horrified they have to do so much.

"So, you pick the biggest wins and the client immediately sees results and can go ahead; it's also frustrating for a consultant to plan and nothing ever happens," he added.

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