THE official theme of the 94th annual meeting of the Association of National Advertisers was "Masters of Marketing," and considering its 700 attendees oversee $300bn of consumer marketing expenditure, the title is understandable. However, the rhetoric at this year's conference has been far from masterful.
"The traditional marketing model we all grew up with is obsolete," said James R. Stengel, global marketing officer of Procter & Gamble, the world's largest advertiser.
"We are taking the reinvention of marketing very seriously at Procter & Gamble," he added, "and we all need to do that."
Mr. Stengel was one of several speakers representing big, well-known sellers of consumer products and services that are substantially reorganizing or rethinking their marketing efforts. The others included DaimlerChrysler, General Electric, Home Depot, Charles Schwab, Toyota Motor, Wachovia, Wrigley and Yahoo.
"Marketing has got to become a competitive advantage," said Michael J Winkler, Chief marketing Officer of Hewlett-Packard, much like superior product quality or better customer service.
But a formidable obstacle looms, according to Mr. Winkler: many of the chief executives to whom chief marketing officers report think that marketing is "largely a financial black hole, an ambiguous function of the business, with immeasurable results and limited return on investment."
Collaborate Marketing believes that the problem is that the advertising world is trying to make an outdated model (the broadcasting model) stand up, instead of recognising that the world has moved on.
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