Tilt

Preface

Why do marketers get so little respect? The CEO wonders how marketers spend their time; the chief financial officer (CFO) wonders how they spend the company’s money; the sales folks think marketers are too conceptual, too abstract, and not sufficiently focused on the immediate business; and what the production and supply-chain folks think is not fit to print. The root of the problem is that for a couple of decades now, marketing hasn’t been seen to be delivering competitive advantage. Since the heyday of mass media and mass brands, marketing’s strategic contribution has progressively diminished. The function has become increasingly tactical, moving the needle on share points, only to lose them within a quarter or two. Think of the reasons ...