Bridging the Great Divide

A few weeks ago, I attended a presentation about the Hyundai Assurance Program. Launched in January, it promised to take back your new car if you lost your job and was widely acclaimed for addressing consumer-spending fears. Ford and GM followed suit with similar programs. At the presentation I learned this program wouldn't have been developed without the integration of Hyundai's marketing and sales departments, which normally operate separately. There's been a lot of talk about integration. Many of our clients are restructuring and realigning in response to digital shifts that have changed consumer behavior. The results are new business models that are shaping the future of marketing. Different companies are taking different approaches, but one form of integration that has been slow to take hold across industries is that of marketing and technology.Digital has not just blurred the line between these two disciplines, it's erased it. As an industry, agencies are increasingly staffing technology roles and working to create a symbiotic relationship with other disciplines, particularly creative. Despite marketing and technology being entwined, many marketing and IT departments at client organizations work in silos. This has made it difficult for long-standing brands and retailers to compete with newer, nimble companies born out of the digital age, like Amazon and Overstock. It's also made it challenging for agencies to sell in technology-driven ideas. We often work at the CMO level, and we've learned that creating prototypes or early working software is not just helpful to demonstrating and selling these ideas, it's also essential. This helps marketers concretely visualize how the product or service will ultimately work. Perhaps more importantly, it's often used as a tool for internal buy-in on the client side.As strategies become more reliant on digital, this division between marketing and IT can instigate inefficient processes, communication breakdowns and excess budget spending.At its core, the division is caused by old, once-effective working styles. Fundamentally, marketing and IT have different priorities. Marketers find flexibility and agility most important, while IT counterparts value stability and continuity. In order for the departments to work together successfully, priorities need to be realigned. Both sides need to learn each other's vocabularies. In terms of goal setting, for instance, the disparity in marketing and IT vernacular tells the story. Marketing takes the offensive by launching campaigns, targeting customers and capturing market share. Meanwhile, IT is on the defensive by creating barriers like firewalls and establishing "demilitarizing zones" to protect valuable corporate assets against hackers.Success metrics are another area of division. Yardsticks for IT success include controlling both costs and the frequency of things going wrong. Marketing is graded on revenue growth and the frequency of things going right (ROI, conversion, retention and long-term value). The results of this fractured relationship are project delays, cost overruns, lack of communication, expensive consultants and repetitive meetings. To resolve these issues, a new environment, largely the responsibility of CEOs, needs to be created to foster collaboration. How can they do it?First, move the two departments closer together so interaction and team building are required.Second, give IT a stake in marketing with room to experiment and innovate. A mind shift needs to take place wherein technologists are seen as creatives and not merely executors. While IT is primarily responsible for ensuring that everything runs smoothly, many of today's successful tech-driven marketing platforms are the result of insights from programmers. By allowing IT to become more involved in marketing, new ideas emerge that may not have surfaced otherwise.Third, in addition to giving IT a stake in marketing, allow marketing to have an influence on technology investments. Marketers should be involved in testing, seeding and selecting technologies. After all, future marketers will be responsible for understanding and keeping pace with technology. The integration of marketing and technology is so entwined today that it's becoming unclear where the CMO's role starts and the CTO's job ends. What is clear, however, is that the integration of these two departments will be a key determiner of success as brands develop and execute their marketing plans. Bob Greenberg is chairman, CEO and global CCO of R/GA.

Brand Marketing

Bridging the Great Divide

Bob Greenberg

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Bob Greenberg