Gerald Nanninga is a fellow whose blog I just chanced upon and it is simply brilliant. Aside from being quite entertaining and extremely informative, it really meets the needs of any executive in the grocery store industry or any retail chains for that matter. He uses a very unique approach to his writing and it is quite fascinating.
Here is a sample one of his marketing posts,(I deleted parts of it, this post is more to show his blogging format and style, which is awesome) to read the entire post click here.
THE STORY
Top secret agent James Bomb was about to go out on a very important mission to try to stop the evil schemes of dastardly Dr. Whoa. Before embarking on his mission, James Bomb went to the agency’s top secret lab to find out what kind of customized sports car he was getting.
“This automobile is state-of-the-art in fighting evil,” gushed with pride the scientist who customized the sports car. “It has everything you need…a machine gun, a rocket launcher, a grenade launcher, and even a torpedo launcher, in case you end up near the water.”
“I looks ingenious,” said James Bomb. “Now show me how they work.”
“Well, therein lies the problem,” sighed the scientist. “Because the sports car is so sleek, there was no room for the bullets, the grenades, the rockets or the torpedoes. I was able to squeeze in all the launchers, but none of the things they launch.”
“What, then, am I supposed to do?” asked Mr. Bomb.
The scientist replied, “In the glove compartment, there is a small pistol which shoots little BB pellets. I’m sorry, it was all I could find at the last moment.”
“Hrrummph,” murmured the disappointed Mr. Bomb. “Well at least I can hope to find some pretty women on the mission.”
THE ANALOGY
Just as in the spy world, there are important missions in the business world. It may not be the dastardly schemes of Dr. Whoa you are fighting, but there are forces out there that can seriously damage the future of your business unless you stop them.
They can give you a fancy mission and they can give you a fancy title (like top secret agent). They can even give you what looks like a powerful platform from which to do battle (like that sports car). However, if you have no bullets or rockets or grenades, you will lose that battle. All you have to look forward to is nabbing a little beauty on the way down.
I think a similar situation is occurring for many of those placed in the Chief Marketing Officer position, known as the CMO. They have been given a fancy mission: to protect the brand long-term and to help it grow over time. They have even been given the fancy title of CMO (they get to be part of the “C”-suite). And as part of the C-suite, they have what appears to be a powerful platform from which to operate.
Unfortunately CMO’s, as a whole, appear to be failing in their task. I think a lot of it is because they do not possess all the tools to get the job done (their version of grenades and bullets). They can make some beautiful ads on the way down, but that’s about it.
THE PRINCIPLE
In last week’s issue of Advertising Age magazine (dated July 9, 2007), one of the cover stories was about a study of the effectiveness of CMOs. The study, by marketing professors Pravin Nath at the LeBow College of Business and Vijay Mahajan of the University of Texas at Austin, looked at 167 companies over a five year period.
What they concluded was the following: CMOs on top management teams don’t have any effect on a company’s financial performance. Let me repeat that: CMOs on top management teams don’t have any effect on a company’s financial performance.
SUMMARY
Protecting and growing the future of your firm is an important task. It is important enough to require having someone on senior staff, full-time, just worrying about the future. The CMO is usually not capable of doing this, regardless of expectations, because they are distracted by the “tyranny of the now” on their advertising responsibility as well as not usually having a broad enough background to cover all the aspects related to the task. Instead, the best solution to the problem is to have a senior executive schooled in the art of strategic planning.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It is interesting to note that, while the study mentioned in Advertising Age saw no positive impact from CMOs on financial performance, it also concluded that “CMOs do not have a negative impact on financial performance.” Well, there you have it. Something to call home about and to put on your tombstone: “I did not have a negative impact on financial performance.”
If you have CMO in your title, I would suggest that you always be out there networking, because the nature of your position tends to cause short career stints.
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