Marketer’s Salvo: Book Review of The Shift: The Transformation of Today’s Marketers into Tomorrow’s Growth Leaders

Falls far from being the Christmas Miracle!  The book is a plea for a seat at the table instead of a playbook for strategic growth.

Christmas Eve I finished rewarding The Shift:  The Transformation of Today’s Marketers into Tomorrow’s Growth Leaders.  Authored by Scott M. Davis, this 2009 publication promised to provide a playbook for marketers in the short-term future.  The book jacket promised, “The best marketers are now creating integrated perspectives that start with the growth aspirations of their entire organization.”[i]  Mr. Scott makes the correct assumption the scope of marketing being communications and advertising had passed.  In an effort to provide value to an organization, the traditional marketer needed to expand their horizons and shift their locus of control, heretofore restricted to budget and implementation of public relations, advertising, and placement, to their organizational growth strategy.  The preface begins with the statement:  “No one is better suited to drive the growth agenda than the head of Marketing.”[ii]  It is at this point that the Christmas miracle was deflated and Scott began a slow progression in an array of duh statements and suppositions that it is the marketing leadership whose locus of control is the voice of the customer.

Penned as the new marketing trend, Scott identifies and subsequently devotes the remaining chapters on an elaboration of five shifts for the marketer – chief marketing officer, marketing leadership, and marketing staff:

1.     From creating marketing strategies to driving business impact.

2.     From controlling the message to galvanizing your network.

3.     From incremental improvements to pervasive innovation.

4.     From managing marketing investments to inspiring marketing excellence.

5.     From an operational; focus to a relentless customer focus.[iii]

There trends will not be argued.  Business and management literature over the last decade has emphasized a similar message.  The consumer – customer, patient, buyer, is the decision-maker in a business to consumer relationship.  As the decision maker, the consumer is in the catbird seat to derive those elements most important to any owner or seller:  revenue, volume, preference, market share.  We have all grown up with the phrase the customer is always right; most have limited its theoretical practice to traditional sales transactions.  Physicians, hospitals, litigators, and clergy, because of their professional nature and underlying assumption of the provider’s knowledge could not be challenged, for decades have neglected to honor this fundamental belief.  These professionals along with their white collar brethren have slowly migrated away from a know-it-all perspective and recognized in an era of vast competitive forces and dwindling financial resources if they hoped to gain or retain their revenues, volumes, market share, or preference the need to focus on the customer was paramount to their success.

The evolution to a customer-centric paradigm can be seen in a series of daily occurrences:

·       Jet-Blue Airlines web site invites consumers to register for travel alerts.  After providing personal demographic information, the consumer is asked: “In an effort to send you travel information relevant to you, please check the boxes below that best reflect your travel interest.”[iv].

·      Fairmont Hotels and Resorts mission statement is:  “Turning moments into memories for our guests.”[v]

·      Target Corporation’s mission statement is:  “”To drive sales profitably while delivering a Target brand shopping experience,” which belies an understanding, definition, implementation, and measurement of the brand experience.

·      Hospitals and physicians are eligible to increased reimbursement from the Federal government for Medicare patients based on a standardized, patient satisfaction instrument.

From “have it your way” to the Disney promise that there is a “kid in all of us,”  recognition of the consumer in the product development, marketing, sales, and acquisition model is well grounded.    Customer relationship management (CRM) and customer relationship marketing has been a fundamental element in the marketing mix for a decade.  The banking industry grabbed on to the concept early based on their voluminous personal records, spending habits, and demographic detail.  Albeit a venue most have not enacted efficiently or appropriately, CRM is used extensively as an email opportunity to reach consumers, customers, etc., and has maximized computer data records most companies have.  Unfortunately, marketers and only scratched the surface of the power of CRM either because of ability or financial resources.

Scott offers the reader an understanding that not all organizations are prepared for their chief marketing officer or her/his staff to make the shift.  He explains some organizations have senior leaders who are instinctive marketers, some are high powered marketing organizations, yet others find marketing to be a strategic driver for future success.  There are also businesses in which there is a historical, disciplined marketing function or historic old school marketing function.  At the outset, Scott creates an easy exit door with these archetypes – regardless of how much the marketer wants to shift, it may be impossible.

The 215 pages of narrative proceed to offer detailed explanations of each of the shift stages and the skills, competencies, learning’s required of the marketer to thrive and create a cultural change.  My concern with Scott’s assumptions and explanation is that it is too much too later for some in marketing roles.   Those professionals who are tuned into market share reports and analysis without application are apt to set organizational expectations for glossy graphics and data driven reports while allowing other departments and teams within the organization to create the necessary linkage and messaging for action.

A visionary marketer[vi]  is challenged by Scott to provide leadership and action in such a way that they own the growth agenda.  The bedrock for this ability is marketing’s understanding and historical connection to the customer.  Here is the second point of challenge to the premise of the book.  The voice of the customer is heard and understood by front line workers, by managers, by senior leaders.  True, often marketers have and are tasked with tracking consumer satisfaction, focus group testing, or complaint management; their ability to take the information and transform it to actionable information is more than a competency learned today. 

The visionary marketer, according to Scott, is able to transcend their role description and have the ability to create a business case.  They are able to create and facilitate coalitions.  The visionary marketer can speak marketing and finance as if they were a United Nations translator.  The visionary marketer is an agent or transformational change. Engaged in cross-functional coalitions, accountable with profit and loss responsibility, owner of the brand, and communicator. 

Each of these role functions can be done by marketing staff; they can be done by any number of leadership within the organization.  The visionary marketer absent of an analytics team, financial and human resources, and the ever-important CEO whose agenda includes a consumer-centric focus for the business, is working on their own. 

The third concern with Scott’s book is its timing and publication.  There is very little that is not on target in terms of the needs, competencies, and skills required to lead strategic growth in 2010.  There is a sense when reading this work that the recession that hit two years ago is in full-swing and business leadership is looking at cost-cutting measures to achieve some degree of profitability.  This backdrop and the visionary marketer challenge is more of a last ditch attempt to retain a role than an agent of change.  The marketer reading this for the first time and experiencing those wonderful aha moments as they pass page 100 and near finally reach page 215 is simply coming to the party to late.  If the concepts and references are engulfed by virgin ears, the likelihood the business will survive the next few years is minimal.  If the marketing closing the book believes they now have the Rosetta stone  for growth and success will undoubtedly find others who have communicated the same message earlier.  The marketer who has achieved a seat at the C-suite table along with the resources to be a visionary marketer, and has successfully maneuvered himself/herself into the consummate owner of the consumer-voice is already entrenched and will this as a history of their efforts over the last few years.

James Watson wrote that “no good model ever accounted for all the facts since some data was bound to be misleading if not plain wrong.”  The Christmas miracle The Shift left out was for the visionary marketer to be integrated, involved, and engaged and have the presence to recognize how to improve strategic growth.  Beginning a journey in which ownership is the sole prize is like the words Jack Dempsey said to his wife when losing the World Heavyweight title in 1926 – “Honey, I forgot to duck.”