The modern field of marketing has had a nice long run — and steadily evolved along with technology and customer trends. So, has the marketing discipline peaked or are the best times still ahead?
According to McKinsey’s Jonathan Gordon and Jesko Perrey, we are entering “the dawn of marketing’s new golden age. Marketers are boosting their precision, broadening their scope, moving more quickly, and telling better stories.”
To summarize Gordon and Perrey:
“Science has permeated marketing for decades. Fans of the television drama Mad Men saw a fictionalized encounter when an IBM System/360 mainframe computer physically displaced the creative department of a late-1960s advertising agency. In reality, though, the 1960s through the early 1990s witnessed a happy marriage of advertising and technology as marketers mastered both the medium of television and the science of Nielsen ratings. These years gave birth to iconic advertising messages in categories ranging from sparkling beverages (‘I’d like to buy the world a Coke’) to credit cards (‘American Express. Don’t leave home without it’) to air travel (‘British Airways: the world’s favourite airline’).”
“Until recently, marketers could be forgiven for looking back wistfully at this golden age as new forces reshaped their world into something completely different. These new trends include a massive proliferation of television and online channels, the transformation of the home PC into a retail channel, the unrelenting rise of mobile social media and gaming, and—with all these trends—a constant battle for the consumer’s attention.”
“The resulting expansion of platforms has propelled consistent growth in marketing expenditures, which now total as much as $1 trillion globally. The efficacy of this spending is under deep scrutiny. For example, in a survey of CEOs, close to three out of four agreed with the following statement: marketers ‘are always asking for more money, but can rarely explain how much incremental business this money will generate.’ Chief marketing officers (CMOs), it appears, don’t disagree: in another recent survey, just over one-third said they had quantitatively proved the impact of their marketing outlays. Paradoxically, though, CEOs are looking to their CMOs more than ever, because they need top-line growth and view marketing as a critical lever to help them achieve it. Can marketers deliver amid ongoing performance pressures?”
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“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; trouble is I don’t know which half” by John Wanamaker-Founder/CEO Wanamaker & Co.
Even though we can not clearly calculate the return on investment ratio, company still want to concentrate on marketing mix while sales go down. It looks like the potential market is the goal they are eager to get.
In my company if Sales is down they hire more Sales People, many of the people hired do not stay or do not deliver the investment in new Business, still the company has no other option to expand and take the risk.
I would agree that we are heading towards a greater marketing golden age especially with the adaption of technology. I agree Marketers are boosting their precision, broadening their scope, moving more quickly, and telling better stories. Many more people are pursuing multiple degrees and the statistics show, I can not wait for the next round of super bowl advertisements as they just continue to get better every year. In sum, I am excited for the potential and opportunities marketers have in front of them.
Where there is exchange of information, there is a market or marketing activities. Previously, marketers and consumers communicate through TV, newspaper, magazines, while now they communicate with each other through Internet. Obviously, the channel of marketing has been extremely transformed to laptop, mobile phone and tables. With the development of digital devices, marketing absolutely will face its another spring. In my view, in the next new golden age, companies need smarter market experts knowing technology and sciences, and languages in that virtual world which increase attentions, and are easily transmitted and understood. I believe the evolution of Internet not only changes marketing, but also will influence the connection among different things.
Conisidering that the field of marketing is entering a new “Golden Age,” I believe that markets will be successful in living up to their expectations. Apple is a good example of how advertising continues to work effectively. Each release of a new Apple product is not worth the price that it is assigned, yet it manages to be in high demand. Why is it that the demand is so high? The only answer I can think of is that those clever marketers are doing their job right thanks to new technologies!
I could not agree more that we are entering “a new golden age” in marketing. With the aspect of social media in the game now and even gaming as well, marketing is incorporated with pretty much everything. There’s no escape from it either, we see it everyday when we’re all glued to our phones scrolling through different social media platforms. Any new social media that is created, marketing will be applied to it. So in my opinion, I don’t think the marketing discipline will ever peak, only steadily grow more and more each year.
I don’t know whether it’s a golden age or not, but the teconology do bring fresh blood into marketing field. In my view, the new age of China’s marketing field is coming. Because the changing of some politics and economic institution, China finally have half-free market economic. More and more industry is going to become market system, which gives marketers in China a big opportunity. I’m very exciting to look forward to the new age of Vhina’s marketing field whe I go back and work as a marketer.