Marketing For Tomorrow, Not Yesterday

A longtime marketing practitioner challenges his colleagues to adjust to a new economy in this nonfiction book.

In this manifesto directed at chief marketing officers, Raj (Brand Rituals, 2012) suggests that marketing has evolved from the “Attention Economy” to the “Information Economy” to what he calls the “Insight Economy.” This, he writes, “requires us to translate and transform the huge amount of information…in order to find new avenues for growth by leveraging powerful and compelling insights that help us serve our customers’ real needs.” According to Raj, the CMO can no longer be a specialist in one area; rather, he or she must embrace the notion of becoming a “Marketing Decathlete” who’s proficient in 10 specific marketing fields, such as “strategic ability,” “innovative mindset,” “engagement focus,” and “deliver[ing] on equity.” As Raj explains these, he compellingly debunks some common modern marketing perceptions; for example, despite the current excitement about big data and microsegmentation, Raj cautions that “you can’t let yourself get so caught up in rhetoric that you forget what problem you’re really trying to solve.” Similarly, he says that chief executive officers and boards enamored with new technologies are just “becoming enablers of fragmentation”; as a result, he says, CMOs often chase “numerous experiments going nowhere.” Social media isn’t safe from the author’s detailed critique, either; he offers several examples of how consumer reactions on social media have contributed to negative perceptions of brands that “lower the bottom line.” Interestingly, Raj writes that he believes in returning to an age-old concept: focusing on the needs of one’s best customers. The optimum model for successful marketing, he writes, is “the TRL model…Trust, Respect and Loyalty.” Although the book poses no detailed solutions, CMOs who heed the book’s advice will, at the very least, take solace that the upheaval they’re witnessing is widespread.  

A well-written, cogent, and concise argument that demonstrates ways to cope with the changing marketing landscape.