MARKETING
Making Marketing Count
At The Corporate Level
By Michael Nzule
Why Corporate Presence?
Marketing as a career has been very
dynamic and trendy. Marketers keep
adjusting continuously to the needs of the
customers. They create the force behind
brands. They nurture the brands from
thought, innovation pipelines (creation),
to growth, to maturity, to reincarnation
or recreation. This is the reason why
businesses exist. Back to basics – to have
products packaged in powerful brands,
that drive competitive edge, supports
growth and creates value, marketers are
always in the mix of all these.
Value drives profitability for businesses.
Value differentiates superior companies
from mediocre ones. Value provides
assurance for longevity and sustainability
of returns. Successful companies are
defined more by the brands they offer.
Deliberate efforts go into creating
powerful brands, nurturing and protecting
them or even making sometimes painful
decisions to cull or kill brands which are
no longer aligned to the value pursuit
of companies. These decisions require
sponsorship at the corporate level. So how
do marketers break the barriers to get the
sponsorship, participation, presence and
the assured spots at the corporate levels?
Marketing professionals can therefore
play a key role as advisors or consultants
to the board. It is about products, brands,
innovation pipelines, projects, leading
investment choices, defining markets,
targets, customers, reassuring the future.
This also challenges the strategic thinking
and provides the vision and the balance
between short term returns from products,
brands and services to long term business
The role at the corporate level is not necessar-
ily to figure out the problems, but to propose
ideas and ask questions to support execution.
Specialist expertise needs to be balanced with
experience, and with experience comes good
judgment. This is a reality for making it at the
corporate level.
58 MAL24/18 ISSUE
sustainability.
Marketing can therefore be positioned as
a key driver and source for value creation
and competitiveness. It is critical in
creating uncontested market spaces for
brands.
This is an outright convergence with core
entrepreneurial pursuits of the owners of
the businesses who are represented at the
corporate boards, hence the compelling
need to ensure that marketers play a role
or better get representation at this level.
Traditionally boards will not lack
professionals greatly endowed with
finance background or even legal expertise.
But for creativity, freshness, unorthodox
thinking, it is critical that at the corporate
level marketing is considered as a core
skill to incorporate.
The
marketers
however,
should
demonstrate that they are up to the task –
they do not have to wait to be invited, but
must create the compelling proposition
that they can no longer be ignored. Start
by speaking the CEO language, back ideas
with numbers – yes numbers tell a story,
quantify the returns for each idea, show
the difference in real revenues, and be
simple and professional – it won’t help to
bring convoluted marketing jargon.
Be simple yet powerful and translate
ideas to serve existing or even projected