Against this backdrop, the importance of marketing efficacy cannot be overstated. Yet if you mention the words ‘marketing effectiveness’ in boardrooms today, the understanding played back is likely to be a short-term perspective, one focused on stimulating demand and reducing the cost of acquiring customers. But it’s important to recognise that true marketing efficacy goes beyond short-term gains. It involves holistically managing brand and marketing operations to meet ever-evolving customer needs, and create real value as these needs change.

Risky Business
We know that in this chaotic world, the pressure to show return on marketing investment is high. Its precisely because of this uncertainty that a marketing plan geared towards the short term is risky. Customer behaviour is becoming harder to predict – customers no longer follow linear pathways to purchase. Instead, they have circular and interconnected routes to choice, and are influenced by multiple data sources along the way. They’ve also adjusted to uncertainty and are more cautious, risk averse, and focused on practical needs. This has placed greater pressure on companies to demonstrate value, and the key is to build that value over both the short and long term. Capturing attention and driving sales will always have a place, but with a purely short-term focus, there is a risk of underinvestment in activities that foster brand salience, long-term memory, and emotional connections with consumers. Things that a consumer can fall back on, even sub-consciously, when making a choice. Companies need to do the hard work of convincing consumers of who they are first, changing their minds about them, guiding their affinity towards them, before the consumer will consider  them within a sale situation. In any situation, customers are likely only choosing between a shortlist of brands in their consideration set. “You have to earn the right to sell”¹.

Focusing on short-term sales also assumes all buyers are actively in the market, overlooking the importance of reinforcing brand perception and readiness for future sales opportunities.

Holistic Brand Management
While many business executives would agree with the idea of building customer value over the short and long term, most don’t see the ways in which they’re deflecting marketing from this purpose within their organisations. The ultimate role of the marketing function is to understand and connect with customers, aligning business strategies to deliver optimal value. This becomes hard to do when marketing planning is driven by isolated business silos rather than a cohesive brand and sales perspective. When marketing is relegated to a secondary support function, charged with ‘selling the things we make here’, what results is  disparate marketing activities, a lack of translation of customer information into actionable insights, and lukewarm value proposition design.

This then manifests in complex brand architectures, overlapping product portfolios, and misaligned value propositions, ultimately diminishing the brand’s impact and consumer perception. The end result being customers who are confused and disconnected as they try to figure out who the company is and what value they really deliver.

Cultivating a Customer-Driven Culture
Encouraging executives, especially those outside the marketing realm, to grasp the broader mandate of marketing in organisational value creation requires a multifaceted approach. We need more discussion at senior management level to improve the understanding of the interconnectedness between marketing and overall business strategy. The ultimate aim is to develop a stronger and more efficient brand and marketing system that achieves the following: efficient brand structures to maximize spending impact; customer value propositions aligned with customer values, making them easier to sell; and brand communication that stands out and attracts attention, while also generating demand and setting the brand apart. This means driving home the operational shifts needed to prioritise the customer, put the right insight against the right audiences, integrate marketing principles into business operations, plan marketing activity more strategically, and optimise resource allocation for maximum impact.

A great example of making this shift to a more holistic, effective marketing approach is AirBnB.  In recent years the brand has balanced its approach to spend less on short term ‘performance’ marketing, while increasing the focus on building the brand to remind people what the heart of their business is about – hosts inviting guests into their homes. Performance marketing is now used to drive interest around specifics that customers look for e.g. classifications of home types, styles and locations that help users find exactly what they are looking for. “Two years after the decision to reallocate marketing spend, the company reported its most profitable fourth quarter on record in February 2023”².

Investing in Data Insights
Connecting customer insight to the propositions developed is central, but often the ability to leverage information to derive actionable insights is an area under-invested in. Despite the wealth of available data, organisations often struggle to harness its full potential and extract relevant insights that drive value creation. When sufficient focus is given to this, the effect is tangible in the market. Checkers is a standout example of a business that has capitalised on data analytics to inform impactful market-facing initiatives. They focused on mining data for insight about what customers value, and combined this with an investment in digital capability to deliver propositions like: Checkers Sixty60 (the country’s #1 one grocery delivery app) and Xtra Savings rewards program (the biggest rewards program in SA with close to 30million subscribers). These propositions created value for the business in their own right, but have done a dual job of shifting perceptions and increasing affinity for the Checkers brand overall.

Leadership Commitment to Refocusing Efforts
Marketing has some work to do in asserting the value of a more holistic, effective brand and marketing approach – one that emphasises customer orientation, leveraging insight and strategic planning to drive sustained business growth and competitiveness. But there is also a need for executives beyond marketing to embrace the possibilities this brings. In large, federated organisations, this often requires a subtle dance by marketing to cultivate internal support,  addressing the perspectives of cynics while leveraging allies and internal influencers. Approaching marketing conversations pragmatically and highlighting strategic opportunities for enhanced effectiveness, while addressing existing pain points, is key.

The ideal is a  customer-driven culture where the delivery of customer value is ingrained in every aspect of the organisation. This means integrating customer impact into all decisions and discussions, ensuring that systems, operations, and executive decisions consistently prioritise delivering value to customers. Visible leadership commitment to this approach is essential, demonstrating the organisation’s dedication to understanding and meeting customer needs effectively.

In conclusion, navigating the chaos of today’s marketing landscape demands a balanced approach that encompasses both short-term tactics and long-term strategies. While short-term sales are vital, they must be complemented by efforts to build brand salience, foster emotional connections with consumers, and prepare for future sales opportunities. Achieving marketing effectiveness requires a holistic brand management approach that aligns business strategies with customer needs and fosters a customer-driven culture within the organisation. By investing in data insights, fostering leadership commitment, and cultivating internal support, marketers can steer their organisations towards sustained growth and competitiveness.

References:

1. Les Binet and Peter Field on 10 years of The Long and the Short of It, Marketing Week, 20 Mar 2023
   https://www.marketingweek.com/this-much-i-learned-les-binet-peter-field/
2. Airbnb CMO on ditching performance marketing for big, bold brand campaigns, The Drum, August 2023
   https://www.thedrum.com/news/2023/08/24/airbnb-cmo-ditching-performance-marketing-big-bold-brand-campaigns