Companies sink while clinging to life jacket
Thursday November 05 2009
BRANDS that respond to the downturn by retrenching are "clinging to a short-term life jacket that will take them nowhere", marketing guru Martin Thomas warned a group of Irish marketeers yesterday.
Addressing the Marketing Institute's annual knees up, Thomas described the characteristics of retrenchment as "tight control", "distrusting everyone" and a "search for certainty".
"The tight control means you've got some companies who won't let anything go out unless it goes through the chief executive," he said.
"The problem is the public doesn't trust the CEO, their attitude is 'I know he's lying, his lips are moving'.
"Distrusting everyone" means communication between customers and ordinary employees -- who customers may actually trust -- is restricted, since the brand doesn't trust its own staff.
The search for certainty, meanwhile, involves making companies hostages to research, stifling experimentation and ambition.
"During tough times brands tend to retrench, but retrenchment will take you nowhere," Martin said, urging marketeers to instead "go out there and fight the battle for renewal" by using "alternative marketing solutions", trusting employees to spread the message and "cutting loose".
"Recessions are fantastic agents of change," he stressed. "And in recession, my God do people need us (marketeers)."
Later, Vodafone Ireland's consumer business director Carolan Lennon stressed the importance of engaging on new levels, pointing out that social media was "not a phenomenon or a fad" but a "change in the way people live their lives".
Vodafone had responded by putting a customer forum on its webstie for "sincere conversations" with customers even though this means "relinquishing control" over what is said.
Irish Independent
