Product, Placement, Promotion and Price? Or should that be Pretentious, Pixel-Pushing, Poodles?

The FT today asks if there's a problem with marketing:

“The mood among some attendees will be suitably operatic about the negative views of marketing held in many boardrooms.”

Research across a sample of 40 business leaders by The Marketing Society and McKinsey, the management consultancy, shows worrying attitudes about marketers, particularly among UK chief executives:

“It is not just that many have a view of the profession as creative but undisciplined. Or that they have culled their marketing teams or resorted to using “interim” executives. Even in businesses where marketing is a core, strategic and well-resourced function, there is frequently a view that the discipline is almost too important to leave to the marketing department alone.”

So where has the conundrum come from?

Peter Burdon, one of the Marketing Society's guest speakers tomorrow - and CEO of Thorntons - thinks that:

“It is a fundamental issue of attracting the wrong kind of people, rather than a training gap. The profession for too long has attracted the kind of people referred to as luvvies. They are not very good with numbers.”

“You need people with a holistic understanding of a P&L - what drives the sales line, what drives the margin, what drives the overhead. Partly I think that marketers don’t find that interesting. But if you have got all those three things, then you get growth.”

Sophie Gasperment is managing director of L'Oreal UK - and another speaker at the event tomorrow - doesn't agree. She argues that it is important to recruit people with a

“diversity of spirit, rather than any particular background or education.”

Sophie agrees with the study’s findings that the marketing function can be undisciplined:

“But that is not necessarily negative.”

My own experience is that many UK marketing managers are still struggling to come to terms with the impact of new technology.

Multiple digital communication channels, the over saturation of traditional media, reducing mass-marketing revenues and the increasing integration of traditional marketing and business systems into the information technology domain is marginalising many UK marketing managers. They need help.

Microsoft UK managing director Alistair Baker, the third speaker at tomorrow's summit, emphasises the advantage of people coming into marketing from a background in sales, operations or other areas of a business:

“Unless you have the right culture, there is a good chance you will fail because the company was not able to adapt to the level of change necessary.”

Finally, as the FT puts it:

“The paradox is that while clouds may hang over the reputation of marketers, all the study’s respondents found that growing top-line revenues is a clear priority. And whether it is by launching new brands or spin-offs, advertising more effectively or better understanding what customers want, marketing has always had a strong claim to be able to grow top-line revenues.”

Oh. And did I ever mention my own background in sales, marketing and new business development - before concentrating on interactive design and development?

Colin Hiom is an independent interactive design consultant with The Quantos Consultancy. For more information or to talk to Colin please call direct on 07958 695444 or email him colin@quantos.co.uk.

For more information about tomorrow's summit please visit the www.marketing-society.org.uk.