In the face of growing customer choice and market transparency, the shift in marketing in
recent years has been profound. Firstly in the era of mass marketing, the primary source of value for most companies was their products or brands; today, value is moving to the customer interface.
Secondly, marketing’s focus, formerly on advertising-based brand development, has shifted to “below the line” operations capable of driving short-term, measurable financial returns.
Third, companies’ sales efforts, once characterized as “one size fits all,” are transforming to meet customer demands for
unique solutions and value-added services. Perhaps not surprisingly therefore, marketing is
being embraced increasingly in board rooms across the world. The position of the ‘chief marketing officer’ (CMO) is gaining currency. The marketer would therefore seemingly be well positioned to be at the heart of driving forward the business agenda. But as always, with added responsibilities become added challenges. Today’s marketers are
having a hard time keeping up. In fact the marketer is in crisis! And if recent research undertaken by Deloitte is anything to go by then the marketer needs to wake up to the changing world.