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Preparing for the future: What is it that makes a brand successful?
29/04/2014
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What is it that makes a brand successful? Marketing 2020 identifies the key factors that separate the over-performers from the chasing pack. Stephan Loerke explains:
At the WFA we have two goals. First we want to ensure that responsible marketers have the freedom to connect in a responsible fashion with people around the world. Second we want to help our members become better marketers.
It's the second goal that led us to partner with EffectiveBrands and its Marketing 2020 project. Based on interviews with more than 250 CMOs including numerous WFA members, it's designed to help identify the key success factors that will help marketing teams win in the future.
By analyzing the structures and attitudes in companies that are growing and comparing them with those that aren't, Marketing 2020 shines a light on the factors that can be critical in determining success and failure.
We've had exclusive access to some of the findings of the research covering trends globally and I'd like to highlight four key factors that marketers might want to think about.
The first big divider is purposeful positioning: As we know from WFA studies including our recent brand purpose research is widely recognized as a powerful way of engaging consumers. What Marketing 2020 found was that over-performers engage employees and their customers around their brand purpose at a much higher level than underperformers.
Asked if they were proud of their brand's purpose, 81% of marketers in over-performing companies agreed, compared to 69% in underperforming companies. A clear gap was also evident in responses to the question: “We continuously engage our consumers and customers around our brand's purpose”, where a 14 percentage point difference was recorded.
The second big divider is the way the best performing companies assess marketing effectiveness: Return on investment, revenue growth and share of market are considered the key indicators best capturing marketing effectiveness.
However, over-performers value revenue growth indicators significantly higher than underperformers (46% to 38%) and also are also much more likely to link personal performance to KPIs than underperforming organizations (68% to 52%).
The third differentiating factor is the collaboration and alignment between global and local teams: For those of us working at a global level, Marketing 2020's finding that less than half of all organizations believe their global marketing team understands the reality and needs of local marketing teams, will come as no surprise.
Similarly, less than half believe that the global marketing strategy reflects the contributions and experience of local and regional teams. However, in both areas over-performers scored markedly better than their underperforming colleagues.
The final factor surrounds the role, capabilities and perception of marketing: Over-performers are more likely to consider themselves to be a strategic partner in driving business growth. Forty-six per cent of the over-performers surveyed said marketing is always regarded as a strategic partner compared to 38% of the underperformers.
My view is that both numbers are much lower than they should be. Marketers will need to raise their game to earn a seat at the table and become key partners in strategic business decision-making.
One last thing that I was pleased to see highlighted by the Marketing 2020 team was the need for an expansion of the realm of marketing. There is a strong belief among both over- and underperformers that marketing and corporate communications will need to merge (more than 60% in both camps strongly agreed or agreed with this statement).
That will come as no surprise to anyone who heard WFA president Martin Riley's address at the Global Marketer Conference.
The separation between the two into communications and marketing was always artificial and it was only possible when information was limited or hard to get hold of.
However, with the advent of social media brands need to adjust to an age where what companies do is as important as what they say.
Sign up to monthly WFA news
At the WFA we have two goals. First we want to ensure that responsible marketers have the freedom to connect in a responsible fashion with people around the world. Second we want to help our members become better marketers.
It's the second goal that led us to partner with EffectiveBrands and its Marketing 2020 project. Based on interviews with more than 250 CMOs including numerous WFA members, it's designed to help identify the key success factors that will help marketing teams win in the future.
By analyzing the structures and attitudes in companies that are growing and comparing them with those that aren't, Marketing 2020 shines a light on the factors that can be critical in determining success and failure.
We've had exclusive access to some of the findings of the research covering trends globally and I'd like to highlight four key factors that marketers might want to think about.
The first big divider is purposeful positioning: As we know from WFA studies including our recent brand purpose research is widely recognized as a powerful way of engaging consumers. What Marketing 2020 found was that over-performers engage employees and their customers around their brand purpose at a much higher level than underperformers.
Asked if they were proud of their brand's purpose, 81% of marketers in over-performing companies agreed, compared to 69% in underperforming companies. A clear gap was also evident in responses to the question: “We continuously engage our consumers and customers around our brand's purpose”, where a 14 percentage point difference was recorded.
The second big divider is the way the best performing companies assess marketing effectiveness: Return on investment, revenue growth and share of market are considered the key indicators best capturing marketing effectiveness.
However, over-performers value revenue growth indicators significantly higher than underperformers (46% to 38%) and also are also much more likely to link personal performance to KPIs than underperforming organizations (68% to 52%).
The third differentiating factor is the collaboration and alignment between global and local teams: For those of us working at a global level, Marketing 2020's finding that less than half of all organizations believe their global marketing team understands the reality and needs of local marketing teams, will come as no surprise.
Similarly, less than half believe that the global marketing strategy reflects the contributions and experience of local and regional teams. However, in both areas over-performers scored markedly better than their underperforming colleagues.
The final factor surrounds the role, capabilities and perception of marketing: Over-performers are more likely to consider themselves to be a strategic partner in driving business growth. Forty-six per cent of the over-performers surveyed said marketing is always regarded as a strategic partner compared to 38% of the underperformers.
My view is that both numbers are much lower than they should be. Marketers will need to raise their game to earn a seat at the table and become key partners in strategic business decision-making.
One last thing that I was pleased to see highlighted by the Marketing 2020 team was the need for an expansion of the realm of marketing. There is a strong belief among both over- and underperformers that marketing and corporate communications will need to merge (more than 60% in both camps strongly agreed or agreed with this statement).
That will come as no surprise to anyone who heard WFA president Martin Riley's address at the Global Marketer Conference.
The separation between the two into communications and marketing was always artificial and it was only possible when information was limited or hard to get hold of.
However, with the advent of social media brands need to adjust to an age where what companies do is as important as what they say.
Sign up to monthly WFA news
