Jack Trout on CEO’s – via Branding Strategy Insider
Derrick Daye from Branding Strategy Insider met with Jack Trout, the marketer who developed the classic "Positioning" concept with his co-author Al Ries. It's an interesting read, and this is one of the thoughts Jack shared with Derrick:
Not enough CEO’s are intimately involved in the marketing process. They are the ones usually failing.
He has met more CEO's than I have, but could it also be that the CEO's he refers to consider "the marketing process" as a tactical activity? Do they see marketing as advertising, selling and PR rather than building a valuable brand?
I would argue that most CEOs are intimately involved in the marketing process, but they probably wouldn't call it that.
When they make fundamental marketing decisions like going into a new market, acquiring a new company or developing a new product, they involve technical and financial people, but not too often marketers, because marketers only come in when it is time to sell and promote. Yet as the representative of their customers, marketers should be very much involved.
Maybe the issue therefore is not that CEO's are not intimately involved in marketing, but that that they could involve marketers more in marketing.
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May 29th, 2007 - 23:47
It seems astounding to me that a CEO would not involve marketing in the earliest stages of business development. Without understanding the customers, how can a business make sensible decisions about what products to develop or what markets to pursue? In smaller companies, a segment I’m more familiar with, successful owners and leaders almost always start from a marketing perspective, whether they call it that or not.