‘Today, the role of marketing is beyond just marketing’
The recently held Pitch CMO Summit - Delhi 2024 featured a future-ready chat on the evolving role of marketing in today's brand landscape on ‘Future-Proof Marketing Strategies’. In the discussion, Neha Anand, Vice President - Global Brand & Communications, Mahindra Automotive highlighted the growing importance of marketing and the changing skillset required for success in the field in a conversation with L V Navaneeth, Chief Executive Officer, The Hindu Group. New technologies emerge, consumer behaviours shift, and competitor strategies adapt. This constant change creates a challenge for brands: how to develop marketing strategies that remain effective in the long term. This is where future-proof marketing strategies come in.
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At the Pitch CMO summit, Navaneeth opened the discussion by asking Anand to sum up how marketing has evolved through the years – pre-Covid vs present. Explaining the dramatic shift in marketing's role within organizations, Anand noted, "The role of marketing has strengthened from 2019 to now. Today, there is a seat that marketing has in a boardroom to start with, which wasn't even there previously. Also, the lines are blurring. Today, the role of marketing is beyond just marketing. I would think anything that touches the market today at a company, is part of marketing. It's become a more holistic role today, and it’s no more just about the 4Ps or the 6Ps that we studied, it's so much more beyond that today."
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The discussion also explored how marketing metrics have evolved. Anand contrasted the past focus on outputs like advertising spend and sales volume with the current emphasis on demonstrating business impact. She explained, "Today, you see a lot more from a channel perspective. It's not just a television ad, it's not just a hoarding that you see. It's really the business impact. A lot of the methods and processes on how you can define attribution that are coming from marketing and sales today, I would say, are both attributing to business.” She further added, “Today, when I talk to you, it's not just about marketing metrics, whether it's digital or ATL, it's it's also business metrics and the contribution. So, I think, overall from a business standpoint, we have a contribution and we can bring in more than that contribution, the attribution that we can show, I think, which was possibly missing." The conversation concluded with a focus on the skills and strategies that will prepare marketers for the future. Anand identified lifelong learning as a critical factor and shared shared, "The biggest tip that I can give is your learnability. As we grow older, we kind of think we know it all. We stop learning. I would say today you have internet and everything's out there. You have the Courseras and the likes, to follow courses. But I think it's the mindset that is very critical, that we should be on a path of constant learning." She highlighted how this commitment to continuous learning should extend beyond marketing-specific knowledge and added, "One thing that Mahindra has done beautifully, over the last few years, is hiring people outside the Auto room. I come from a tech company myself and today, auto is becoming tech in many cases. And that's also what's happening across many, many other industries. So how are you going to learn and leverage that and sometimes that might give you the first mover advantage." Anand emphasized several key strategic points for future-proofing marketing in the next five to ten years and said "I would start with trust, brand trust. I think that would be number one." Second, Anand advocated for a broader ownership of marketing within organizations. She explained, "Marketing is not just the job of the marketeer or the marketing team. It's the job of the organisation, to future-proof marketing and the organisation." Finally, Anand highlighted the increasing convergence of marketing and technology. She stressed the need for marketers to become more tech-savvy, saying, "Today, marketers have to become technologists. We will see a lot of technology leaders moving into marketing as well." Beyond these core points, Anand also advises maintaining an open mind and actively seeking out new partnerships and technologies: "I never say no to any meeting today. I actually say yes to everything, and the reason is that you don't know where a good idea or a good technology would come from, you just need to have an open mind."