Today’s guest post is by Mark Sareff, Chief Strategy Officer at Ogilvy Australia.
Eddie Hart was my dream CEO. He barged into my office one day when I worked in Marketing demanding to know: ‘Why, whenever I walk past your door do I never see your feet on your desk?’
I was mid-twenties. He was a really daunting bloke. I had no idea where his line of thinking was going.
He followed that with: “You’re infinitely more value to us if you spend your time with your feet up daydreaming. That’s what I really pay you for.
”I’m horrified by how much the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. Frankly, I’ve had a gutful of hearing that Marketing folk don’t belong at the boardroom table. That they’re ‘fluffy’. Dreamers. That today’s marketers need to be far more left-brained (if you subscribe to left brain/right brain).
This is utter nonsense.
I’ve had the great fortune to work with truly inspirational marketers – like Austin McGhie at Kellogg, Paul O’Brien at Warner-Lambert, David Thomason at MLA, Peter Bush at McDonalds, Don Meij at Domino’s and Joe Saad (now running Weight Watchers). The analytical stuff - piece of cake. Strength of character – there in spades. Far more importantly, they had courage, empathy, fertile imaginations and faith in their own gut-feel – damn good right-brains.
Stay with me a wee bit longer, please, and you’ll see where I’m going with this:
A few years back, the Financial Times reported that: ‘The average British and American company is valued by the stock market at around twice net balance sheets. Brand rich companies are valued by the stock market at four times net assets.’
The crucial difference between a product (the rational/functional bit we deliver) and a brand (rational + emotional) is the ‘fluffy stuff’. The intangible, non-rational – sometimes will o’ the wisp – component doesn’t come from analytical thinking but from creativity, imagination, intuition, empathy. The ‘fluffy stuff’ has huge economic benefit. It creates and sustains margin and doubles shareholder value. So it follows we need more, not less of these so-called ‘fluffy’ people – right at the very heart of the organisation where margin and shareholder value are created.
It’s time for the pendulum to swing back the other way. Let’s identify, nurture and promote the dreamers – they will create value for the left-brainers to count.