Marketing Maniacs
The new marketing manager for the company's most promising product had just graduated from an impressive university. He had a good education; a sign of encouragement for the team. His first meeting with in-house advertising put him off so much, he opted to hire outside services. At least with an outside vendor, he would get things done the way he wanted them done! Every bit of his margin went to cover the massive invoice that produced a mediocre print piece--all unnecessary charges, because his in-house advertising department was willing and able to create something better for a fraction of the cost. “Creative people are so difficult” was his complaint--and it is a common complaint from marketing. But it's not the creative department that's at fault. Sometimes marketing oversteps its bounds and exerts control over a project in areas where they have no expertise but still seek to control. One of twelve famous steps is “Admit the part you played” and in this case, the marketing manager arrived on the scene with unreasonable expectations; absolute and total control.
Marketing schools preach the four Ps, and handled with some expertise, the Ps can produce dramatic results. Product, Price, Position and Promotion are the buzz words of marketing professionals. But marketing is just part of a creative team and teamwork means not only working together; it means playing your assigned role. Send in a fullback to do a quarterback's job, and you will fail miserably due to a misplaced skill set. Ken Davidson, Chief Executive Officer of Encore Medical, put it this way, “You're so hard to work with really means ‘why won't you let me have my way.’ If it's a design decision, it's your decision.” Senior management would profit from this simple approach when they put the teamwork principle to the test. A little support from senior management is all it takes; that and encouragement to work toward corporate goals. Here's how agency professionals handle the creative process.
Advertising agencies have a working hierarchy developed to allow each player optimal performance. Equal responsibility is spread between two branches of the business; the CREATIVE side and the SALES side. The creative side contains copywriting (writers) and art (art directors, production artists, illustrators). A Creative Director controls and guides these two departments to bring art and copy together to support a concept. This concept may come from any area, sometimes even the client. The SALES side includes account supervision (account executives/client liaisons) and marketing (marketing specialists who create strategy using focus groups, consumer studies and demographics). The account executive works with the client and marketing to set strategy. The creative director pulls art and copy together to support a concept based on marketing strategy. Everybody works with the production manager and media buyer to make sure it falls into place on time and under budget while hitting the target. In a perfect world, that's how great creative gets produced. And don't forget your in-house creatives contributed eye-catching sales support when passing out the $moolah$ at the end of the quarter. Just because you see tangible results in dollars from sales and marketing doesn't mean they were solely responsible for product success.
In the corporate world, in-house creatives are saddled with politics and cookie cutter pecking orders that prevent the natural flow to project fruition. Sales and marketing managers vie for distinction with senior management; jockeying for position in a pecking order determined strictly by margins. Wise managers know when to draw a line to keep this hogwash from flooding the creative department. One marketing manager sat in his tiny office surrounded by ad campaign comprehensives (created by the in-house ad department) relishing all the compliments from coworkers on his talent (for BS). A more common character is the manager who makes unnecessary changes to justify and validate his participation in the project—and it's a contribution he will make at any cost. Naturally, it's at company expense; he is spending company money to highlight the importance of his contribution. This misguided urge to make one's mark on creative product stamps out innovation—all to shore up a faltering ego, like a tomcat spraying his territory. So what happened to the big picture, including corporate goals? Probably the same thing that happened to the brilliant creative product that got quashed due to forced collaboration.
Marketing schools have an interest in educating students as jacks-of-all-trades. This makes them attractive hires for small business. The P that causes more grief for designers and graphic artists is promotion. Marketing promotion refers to strategy in an existing market. It is not advertising, concept creation, graphic design, or copywriting; it's not media buying, either. It is not typeface selection, design style or stock selection. Marketing involves design in approach only: marketing designs strategy. The marketing professional who thinks he ought to control aesthetics in advertising design should take heed: Step back and let the creative directors and art directors of the world do what they do best without interference. Don't kid yourself, marketing managers—it takes years of training and study to become a designer. Taking a couple of graphic design courses will never give you what you need to override the aesthetic decisions of a design professional. The payoff for the company and the product are results in a much more profitable bottom line, but only if you can resist the urge to micromanage.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I know where Osama Bin Laden is; he staying at the Hard Rock Cavé. Download the free POD cartoon on my website by clicking on the Burka Girls. I just had to wonder about the hospitality amenities and whether or not he was exchanging culinary tips with Eric Rudolph, another longtime cave dweller.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Look for more stories and adventures in advertising design in my book Start and Run a Creative Services Business. It's filled with great links and a full spectrum of experiences that will prepare you to face the unknown in freelance and the world of design. Not an artist? You'll be in stitches as you follow the adventures of self-employment. And if you've been freelancing for a while, you'll find new information and a trustworthy mentor to stand by your side through thick and thin in Start and Run a Creative Services Business. Excerpts are available online at my website.
"Playing your assigned role" is a difficult concept for some organizations to grasp, especially entreprenurial ones. This is where mentorship can make a valuable contribution. The new marketer, the new creative, the new anybody, can choose to take advice from the veterans about how the organization is supposed to work. Or not. The "or nots" will cause the problems you've highlighted in your post, Susan.
If you don't know what position you're supposed to play, you could always ask someone and integrate the advice into your own worldview.
I can't tell how refreshing it was to read this article. There has always been a problem between Marketing and creatives but in the recent years it seems to be out of control. My business has lost 2 major clients through the inability of their inhouse Marketing staff to understand that they we are hired to produce profession, FRESH creative. They do not respect our expertise & experience, and in one case a 21 year Marketing assistant inferred that creatives can only produce work from detailed creative briefs from marketing staff.
It seems now to be a constant battle to prove our worth. Its depressing, particularly when these 'professionals' where in nappies (or younger still!!) when I first joined an design studio.
This seems to be the new trend, if I'm undestanding this all correctly. Two years ago, a new VP of Marketing was hired at my former employer. He was groomed to become the president, and six months later, he was. Skip ahead eight months, and the agency of record is hauling in $12K/mo for doing almost nothing and handling the national brand campaign, while our creative services dept handled the local store (franchise) marketing. We'd been doing it for over three years and the franchisees appreciated it. In August of last year, the entire dept was sacked because, as the president said, "We just feel that the agency is better positioned to implement the marketing message." Skip ahead another six months and guess what: my old employer is being sued by the franchisees for not living up to the terms of their marketing agreement.
This is what happens, and it's a shame, but if we can make more money and be more expressive as creatives, outside corporate culture, let's do it! Plus, we get to charge the same morons more money for the work we were doing before. It's a win, win!
Unfortunately the 'new' way of doing business separates sales from marketing and puts marketing squarely in charge of creative. I attribute this to expanded development of pc computer programs that spit out numbers, giving senior management the 'impression' of something quantitative, depending on who acquires and sorts the data. Business these days is split by 'sales', 'operations' and 'marketing' and creative is put under marketing, which is- of course- numbers based. Bean counters who are now in charge of all business simply don't know how to quantify creative, so they look to 'marketing'.
Marketing is a relatively new discipline in bussiness. Whereas before creative operated as the liason between sales and sales support material (ie marketing), now a newly created dept. 'marketing' is interjected to take over this role. More often than not,these marketers are low paid right out of college types with no experience who are given position above seasoned creative professionals and directors.