Join the marketing plan for marketers

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 | Updated: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:48 am | By Mark Choueke

There’s a campaign being built here at Marketing Week. And it involves you.

Last week I wrote an extended website version of this column on the subject of leadership in marketing, when I spoke about our joint responsibility to make ourselves and our function as valuable to our businesses as we can.

More than 3,000 of you read the web version and many of you commented on the website, emailed me direct and even phoned in to contribute your thoughts.

One web user wrote: “We should collaborate via your publication to determine the marketing plan for marketing. When do we start?” Others dismissed my thoughts as part of a wider and older problem that was unsolvable because, it seems, marketing has never proved itself worthy of leading business from the centre and there are too many poor marketers about.

Well, here’s the good news on a “marketing plan for marketing”. Marketing Week and its readers aren’t the only ones that are looking to do something about what some of you have rightly pointed out is an “age-old problem”. The Advertising Association is putting some real weight behind the economic case for marketing and advertising. Last year, the association launched its Front Foot campaign and has since been busy raising some £800,000 from within the industry. A good proportion of this warchest will be spent underpinning CREDOS - a new, independent research capability with a remit to understand the importance of marketing and advertising, not just economically but socially and culturally.

“If marketing is to be properly understood by Government officials, the City, the media and our bosses who allocate us budget, we need a strong case to put to them”

If marketing is to be properly understood by Government officials, the City, the media and our bosses who allocate us budget, we need a strong case to put to them, heavy on evidence, heavy on metrics and heavy on numbers. But all this is going to require the financial and intellectual support of some of the UK’s leading marketing talents.

To support this push to elevate the marketing function to the top of the business tree, we require your thoughts, case studies, comments and suggestions. We can provide you with enough good practice, learnings and tips through content in the magazine, on the web and through live events such as The Annual. But the responsibility to raise the profile of marketing within your businesses is your own.

As I said, there is a campaign being built here at Marketing Week. And it involves you.

Mark Choueke, editor

For more information or to book your place at the Annual go to www.theannual.co.uk