We thought you’d like to meet the board behind The Marketing Society. The board meets monthly and takes all major decisions about the society. Our board is supported by a full-time professional staff at our head office in Teddington. To help you get a sense of our board members’ perspectives, each one has answered the same question: What’s the biggest challenge facing marketing today?
Chairman, Chris Satterthwaite, CEO Chime Communications:
“The biggest challenge is working as a core part of business rather than an add-on department doing marketing communications, T shirts and events. ‘Great’ marketing is about identifying the ‘unarticulated’ consumer needs and wants and then exceeding them. This is the way companies grow which means that marketing is the essential route to growth in business.”
Hon secretary, Suki Thompson, founding partner, Oystercatchers, whose key focus is the Marketing Excellence Awards.
“Clients who were obsessed with integrated marketing communications, are now asking ‘what should we be doing in the digital space?’ Clients need to restructure their marketing departments and change their budget allocation to make the most of this new communications era.”
Hon treasurer and chairman of finance, Chris Griffin, partner P I Global and chief executive Museum of Brands.
“Marketing has two objectives for survival: firstly recognition in corporate and political circles for what marketing can achieve and secondly focusing itself to deliver measurable results against corporate and long-term political agendas.”
Fiona McAnena, VP, Innovation, PepsiCo UK & Ireland, whose key focus is membership.
“More than ever, the brand is a touchstone for the consistency and integrity of a business. Businesses which fall short will be found out. Marketers must be the conscience and the champion of their brand's promise, which in turn wins customers and grows the business.”
Alex Batchelor, marketing director, Royal Mail, whose key focus is sponsorship:
“Distinguish between the task of marketing - understanding what consumers want and what the business wants and matching the two, and the department of marketing - charged with brand and communications. Remember your responsibilities to the task of marketing and growing the long-term profitability of organisations.”
Clare Salmon, Group Director of Strategy, Marketing and Customer, Royal & SunAlliance Insurance Group, whose key focus is training:
"The biggest challenge is balancing the rationale and the emotional sides of the balance sheet: driving outstanding creative and rigorous commercial thinking through to the bottom line. To be a visionary and a pragmatist requires a svengali-like ability to adopt different approaches.”
Fran Cassidy, managing partner, Cassidy Media Partnership, who is responsible for programme and research:
"The biggest challenge facing the marketing industry today is to make its contribution to business growth truly accountable. The more it focuses on the bottom line, the more we will find "marketing companies", rather than just "marketing departments".
Grant Duncan, partner, Grace Blue, who was responsible for the 2007 Annual Conference:
“With technology accelerating and converging, with consumers taking control of corporate agendas and demanding greater transparency, the ability for us to forecast future market behaviour is becoming less reliable. We need to create the context for some new rules.”
Chris Macleod, partner, Macleod and Partners, with responsibility for fellows
Nick Smith, group MD, Accenture Marketing Services