Marketing Motormouth

People are always quick to point to failures in the world of marketing and it’s easy to point the finger of blame, blaming the marketer, when quite often it’s a failure to exercise common sense which is the real problem.

Take the example of Hoover’s free European flights promotion in 1992, which was commercial suicide and, to make matters worse, they did it again, offering two free tickets to the USA for customers spending more than £100.

Nothing added up here and what started out as an exercise to clear excess stock ended up with the company suffering irreparable damage to its UK corporate image and leading to the organisation being forced into providing 200,000 seats for disgruntled consumers. This was a failure of common sense rather than marketing theory, with executives not understanding that people were buying because of the travel tickets rather than wanting Hoover products.

It isn’t always the case of a failure of common sense, there are times when marketers do make mistakes and it’s easy to see why non-marketers point the finger of blame.

Experience

The lack of understanding of the marketing function doesn’t excuse company directors from their responsibility to take a close interest in marketing, yet marketing seems to be the only area of business operation where inexperienced incumbents are let loose with company money and in many cases whilst it’s good experience for the fledgling marketer, it’s evidently bad for the company.

It’s amusing to think that not one company director would appoint an inexperienced accountant to sail solo with its finances, just in the same way that you’d let your children be operated on by a surgeon who had never had any clinical experience. Therefore, why do some company directors appoint graduate marketers to positions where there is only one member of the marketing department, trust them with their brand and then blame the employee for making mistakes, when they haven’t been trained adequately for the role.

What is apparent from experience of interviewing many graduate marketers over the years is that the best of them always have oodles of common sense and that not many graduates understand marketing in the real world, as the textbooks focus on case studies where the company has unlimited funds, competitors are believed to be inert in their reactions and as pure academic marketing experts would have you believe, that you’re the only one who is smart enough to have thought of it first.

Just like football, learning the skills are a pre-requisite, yet when the whistle blows, every match is a new one and you’ll encounter new experiences every time. The take home message is that a couple of years marketing experience is worth the same as an academic PhD. However, it’s even better when you have the academic background to back up experience.

The onus is on you

I know what your thinking, when I say the onus is on you, who are we talking about? Is it the graduate marketer or the prospective employer? Well, it’s both. As an employer you have the responsibility to ensure that you work closely with your new marketing incumbent, providing training, discussing the practical consequences of actions and the reality of your situation.

Unfortunately in the real world this doesn’t excuse you getting stuck in and I strongly advise you to cut your teeth by gaining valuable marketing experience wherever you can so that when you graduate, it will be easier to market you!