Episode 106: Marketing’s professionalism problem

Speaker 1  00:02
You welcome to the CIM Marketing podcast. The contents and views expressed by individuals in the CIM Marketing Podcast are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the companies they work for. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Speaker 2  00:16
Hello everybody, and welcome to the CIM marketing podcast and a triumphant return for one of our favorite guests, in the shape of Morag, could have for Jones. She hasn't been on the show for a while. Many of you will know her. She is editor of catalyst magazine, the CIM membership magazine.

Speaker 3  00:35
How are you, Morag?

Speaker 2  00:40
I'm very well. It's great to see you again. And the reason that Morag is on the show is that we are previewing the next issue of catalyst, the spring edition, which is out in early April. Very exciting. Looking forward to that. And we've got two very special guests with us, two to discuss some of the content in there. And they are Miss Hayley Knight, who is group head of marketing and business development at the NEC Consulting Group.

Speaker 4  01:07
How are you, Hayley? I'm very well. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's great to

Speaker 2  01:12
have you on the show. Great to have you here. And Mr. Philip Ricketts, who is wholesale commercial director at Royal Mail,

Speaker 5  01:19
Philip, how are you? I'm great. Thanks, Ben, thanks for having us today, and

Speaker 2  01:23
it's great to have you here. Great to have you here. And the reason that Hayley and Philip are with us today is because we've got a special round table coming forward in the next issue in which we're looking at professional standards and professionalizing marketing, something that's very close to our members and marketers more widely. So we're looking forward to hear a little bit more about that a little bit later. But before we get to Hayley and Philip, we're going to come to you Morag to talk about the new issue more widely, and particularly the cover story, which you have cleverly build range anxiety, but which could also be called more Prosaically, the trouble with innovation, and it turns out that innovation in marketing isn't easy. Is it

Speaker 3  02:06
something we seem to have had a lot of trouble with? Let me ask you a question. Ben, Were you ever a banana in the late 1990s

Speaker 2  02:15
I wanted a banana. I'm not sure where this is going, but I assume you're talking about a phone. I hope you're talking about,

Speaker 3  02:22
I am talking about a phone and not a potassium rich fruit. So the Nokia, less wonderfully branded, 7110 was commonly known as the banana phone. It was a sludge green, matte plastic mobile device that rose to fame through the Matrix films. It was Keanu tool of choice that blitzed him away from the service agents that were trying to kill him in the matrix and into the real world. But more importantly, it was the most desirable mobile phone of the late 90s. It had a flick out microphone. It didn't look anything like the phones that were on the market at the time. And Nokia had innovated all of these phones up till now. It innovated the small phones when you had Motorola and those giant, big, clunky, black things that you'd see in a big American Wall Street films. So Nokia was on a roll with this thing. The problem was that it joined it to its services, and its services were simply not up to snuff. Where they also innovated, apart from the banana phone, was with whap, wireless application protocol, otherwise known as the first mobile internet. And we should be celebrating that, shouldn't we? Nokia managed to bring us the first actual mobile internet we could shop online with our phones.

Speaker 2  03:54
This was a nestled smartphone, or it was had a toe into smart features in theory. But the point you're going to tell me now is it's in theory, isn't it? Not practice.

Speaker 3  04:03
It was the pinkiest of pinky toes into the very shallowest of waters of mobile internet, with its tiny, little square screen, you could access a kind of dot matrix version of the internet. You could even do some shopping, but the experience was very clunky. The service was incredibly poor. You could hardly ever reach it in these days of basically free internet bundled with contracts, it was also incredibly expensive. It ate through your bill to connect to whap. Now we should think, but they're innovating. It's great. It's lovely as a first adopter, to be at the forefront of something great, but it over promised. It said it was mobile internet, and we knew what internet was like, even if it was dial up. We knew that we could have an AOL type experience. But when you say it's mobile internet and you don't get mobile internet, that trough of disillusionment comes racing. Up at you pretty quickly. I spoke to the former Marketing Director of Nokia at the time, and he was acknowledging that great idea, but didn't work as expected or as hoped, and they couldn't get those services to match up to expectations. And they took their eye off the ball. They started really trying to get the services to work, and stopped focusing where they were really great, which was on the handsets. They started making some really weird handsets to be able to deliver mobile music, for example. And so it just unraveled really quickly, and it's one of the reasons the Nokia brand diluted so quickly from being at such heights to such lows.

Speaker 2  05:43
This is fascinating. So it's an innovation case study is a case study of two things. It's a case study of innovation not done properly, because, as you say, what the banana phone promised in terms of internet, it couldn't realistically deliver too expensive and too slow. But it's also, on a wider level, a case of innovation actually going some way to leading to the demise of a brand. You know, Nokia is a case study of in innovation, is that it was the market leader and then it suddenly wasn't the market leader. And actually, this for Ray into being innovative was part of the reason you're saying it backfired,

Speaker 3  06:21
you're right in saying that it was part of the reason there were many, many other business decisions across Nokia. Nokia was also much more than just a simple mobile handset manufacturer, but it certainly proved a bit of a turning point in how the company focused on what it ought to have been doing and lost sight of what it did really, really well. And the reason that I wanted to speak to Nokia and find out what had happened is because we see this repeat itself as innovations come and go. And I wondered if there were any parallels to today, where we're seeing the EV market, hence the wonderfully titled range anxiety. Yeah, because the EV market is suffering from some similar challenges. I don't think any of us is going to say that the EV market is going to crash and burn, but it has certainly suffered from a lack of services that match expectations that literal range anxiety. If I get in my electric vehicle, will it actually get me where I want to go, or am I going to spend three hours in a desolate service station eating some dried up burgers while I wait for it to charge? And yet, car manufacturers also have to focus on the fact that they're not just making for an EV market. They're still making cars. They've got to remember, you have to make something people want to sit in. It's

Speaker 2  07:50
got a big eight car. It's interesting, because the the market aspect on EVs always strikes me as risks being counterproductive for some of the reasons you say, and the reason I say that is, if you look at the advertised range of some of the top EVs, now, their advertising range is in excess of 400 miles, which you'd think, fine. The trouble is that when motoring magazines and so on and sort of actually test the marketing against the reality, they can't squeeze 400 miles out of them. So is there a further lesson here in innovation, almost going back to the banana phone, is that, as marketers, what we say our products can do, we have to be damn sure they can actually do.

Speaker 3  08:34
There is a great deal of store that we have to set by again over promise under deliver, actually under promise over deliver is going to be the better way about it, but you're building a new an entirely new sector. It is dependent on so many moving parts, few of which you actually have control over. Few manufacturers, if you're not Tesla, have control over the charging infrastructure. You don't have control over road works that are going to make you crawl along in freezing cold temperatures listening to the radio for two hours that are going to burn up your range, you could do 400 miles, provided you're not stuck in endless roadworks on the M 25 so there are so many factors at play, but consumers will forgive a lot, provided a lot more of the moving parts that you can control are in place, such as having a great car, such as having great services that you can deliver. So for example, in car, infotainment or warranty services, replacement parts, all these things that make a genuinely good customer experience. And yes, the range is actually getting a lot better. What the EV market is now fighting against is perception, rather than reality. They can actually do a lot more. And also the EV market is significantly focused on fleet. And fleet is super important, and they are super delivering for fleet, because fleet being part of corporations, drive to net zero is. These corporations have a big target. If your business is built on a fleet of cars, that's a big chunk of your sustainability drive. If you can make those EV, you've dealt with that issue. So actually, it's fleet that's driving it. As we often find, we often find that the business usage of some of these products will actually really be what drives the market forward. So I feel, just to wrap up this whole sort of range anxiety concept, EVS will get there. It will be okay. The perceptions will sort themselves out, as long as the companies involved continue to focus on what they were primarily good at, which is making great cars that people want to drive.

Speaker 4  10:44
So my experience was totally different. I have, I did have the range anxiety. I've just gone for an EV vehicle myself, and I did, in the end, go for Tesla, not anything to do with their marketing, because, as you know, they don't actually market their product, but the range anxiety was definitely a big thing for me, just, you know, off the floor of the fact that it is a big thing out there, and it is quite off putting for people, and the fact that you do need to know that it does what it says. And in the end, I had to base a lot of my knowledge off word of mouth, as opposed to the actual marketing of the brand, because it's not quite out there. That's

Speaker 2  11:25
interesting, isn't it? Philip Rick, it's that Hayley actually didn't trust the marketing. She bought a product, deliberately mistrusting the marketing and actually listening to what her friends and relations told her about the

Speaker 5  11:38
product. Now it's really interesting. And obviously, being logistics company, and going back to morax point about fleet, then clearly, you know, we have a fleet of 90,000 vehicles. So electrification is a challenge, and for all the reasons that morax indicated, and obviously the capital investment involved in replacing and servicing and charging vehicles is an enormous challenge. And I think, I guess there's always two ways to look at this so, so on one hand, you know, I take my how to knock your example. In terms of marketing is about being brave, and product development is hard. Innovation is hard. And there are lots of examples where, you know, innovation is too clever and maybe too early for the market, or, yeah, and for organizations, particularly the EV market, creating a market to create electric vehicles is an enormous cost. It's an enormous capital risk for businesses. So, you know, hats off on bravery, I think is one element of it. But Morag also acting exactly right in terms of, how do you take customers on that journey? And you know, your experiences versus typically, whenever you you enter a market. You know price points for new technology products are very expensive. Very expensive. They then become cheaper as the market becomes more saturated and more choice. But the that creates a higher level of expectation and from a customer perspective, in terms of the service and experience that you're actually going to get. So it kind of plays into both Haley's and and borax. Kind of point is, you know, it's, it's a real challenge and a really tricky balance. But equally, if you don't innovate, you die, and that's the downside. So it's a real balance to walk

Speaker 2  13:08
along, but to understand that balance as marketers, we have to have learning as marketers. We have to have knowledge as marketers. We have to professionalization as marketers. And you know, having those learnings, those qualifications, that professionalization helps us assess the risks and frame the decisions we're making. Interestingly, in the magazine coming forward you, you both contributed, arrived in person to a round table. Looked like a sumptuous breakfast, which was discussing this topic, professional standards in marketing, and a couple of things popped out when I read the preview piece. The first one was the declaration that professionalism in marketing is in crisis. And the second one was that a lack of professionalization to your point, Philip, if budgets are being wasted, presumably risks aren't being assessed properly, and we're making mistakes, professionalism is in crisis, according to this article, and according to the round table that you contributed to, is that too strong?

Speaker 5  14:08
I always, I hate on the course on the journalistic titles, so crisis is always a strong word. But I think it's fair to say that, yeah, the professional state of marketing industry is not in an ideal position it should be, and it's quite frightening when you read some of the statistics in terms of the level of degrees in which people are qualified in the profession to undertake marketing. So you know, going back to the point around levels of investment and the amount of money that people have invest in marketing. So if you take the advertising industry alone, 45 been in the UK on advertising alone. So these are not insignificant investments for organizations, and they're all about investing for a better future. So you know, and like any profession, yeah, you wouldn't go to use an accountant that isn't qualified to do accountancy to do your annual account. So yeah, having the right skills and the right qualifications from a marketing. Professional perspective is critical for businesses, and it was a quite a depressing read, if I was honest, in terms of looking at the level of professionalism and education standards within the marketing community. And I think it's a wake up call for the industry, really about how do we improve standards, qualifications, education and breadth to improve the effectiveness of where we invest and what we do moving forward.

Speaker 2  15:22
Interesting. Hayley that Philip wouldn't use the term that we journalists would use, which is typically going for the Jugger. You're using provocative words like crisis, but he is frightened by the state or lack of status standards in the industry. I would

Speaker 4  15:35
completely agree with you, to be honest, and it's something that I'm very strong points on myself. You know, both in terms of a business's standards and personal standards for, you know, people and their own personal development, and actually how, how they come into marketing and how they adapt that as they grow. Me Myself, I fell into marketing, or should I say, probably pushed into marketing by a senior director very early on in my career. And for me, it was something that I felt that I needed to do in terms of my own personal development, was actually upskill my knowledge and actually back up what it was that, you know, I learned in terms of my Soft Skills and, you know, on the job learning, so to say. But alongside that, I found that it was something I had to do from a professional point of view, because I worked with a lot of people that just did not buy into marketing. And I think sometimes that's where the crisis can start, is the fact that the actual organizations don't understand the sheer amount of what marketing is. We essentially treat it still as an add on to the business, and actually it's far more than that. And I'm a very big advocate, and everywhere I've worked, it, to me, is about being the core of the business and aligning with the business goals and the strategies that the business puts in place. Now, if you haven't got somebody that's working to a professional standard, and we're all just going about doing whatever it is that we think may be the right thing to do. It comes back to that accountability thing at the end of it, that if we've spent X amount of money and we haven't done it in the right way, and there's no strategy behind it, and we haven't put in everything that as a professional marketer that's got qualifications and has done some level of, you know, understanding in that area, if we're not putting that into practice, when we're then sat in the board meeting with the directors, asking why we've spent X amount of money and it hasn't performed. You know, it goes back to the fact that we're essentially not qualified to do that in the first place, because we're not understanding everything that goes into marketing. We're only treating it as a single entity in a one, one area.

Speaker 2  17:44
Morag, you use the word crisis, you didn't write the article, but you edited it. But if it's not a crisis, it's pretty damn close by these testimonies. It's seen as an add on. It's an under professionalized not enough people are getting qualified. And you know, there's a lack of accountability, right?

Speaker 3  18:03
So let me chuck some numbers at you, and then we can see whether or not this is a crisis. I was at a marketing procurement conference yesterday, which was half the attendees. There were marketers trying to figure out how to procure the best services, and the other half were service providers trying to show marketers how they wouldn't miss spend their money effectively. I'm sure there was a bit more variety than that, but that's what it felt like now there was sim research said 39% of them said that the lack of professionalism has wasted marketing budgets. Okay, let's round that up with some really bad maths and say that's about half. Now another half figure, the alleged Lord leaves whom who said half of my marketing budgets wasted. I just don't know which half that gets trotted out at every conference, and at pretty much every conference, the marketers just go, shrug because, probably because it's a cliche. Now, let's flip that. Let's say half of my marketers are wasting all of their budget. That would make people stand up, wouldn't it? Now, what's the answer? We don't know. Which half of the marketers do we fire? All the marketers do we fire half of the marketers, and hope that's the right half. Alternatively, how about we find ways to lift professionalism across the board, make sure all the marketers have all the tools, all the knowledge and all the standards, and perhaps that 50% of market budget that's wasted won't get wasted anymore.

Speaker 2  19:38
We need to make active steps Philip Rick, it's to professionalize the industry

Speaker 5  19:44
we do. And I think, you know, it's a responsibility of lots of people within the industry, employers, I think, from an education perspective, but, but fundamentally, you're right. Why wouldn't you want to have the best qualified that the most up to date at the. Best knowledge, tools and access to skills that you could possibly can in an area that you're investing for future growth, and within that, you know, there are clear commercial risks. Yeah, if we talk about entering new markets or creating new markets, you know this is you're effectively writing a the rule book for those industries and how to go to market. So, so inevitably, there's risks and there's no guarantees. But when you, when you do that, why wouldn't you want to have the best skills, the best knowledge, the best plan in place to do that, going back to morax, point to de risk, where you can waste money. So I completely agree. I think, you know, it's, it's a fundamental that every organization should be investing in its talent and have the right skills in place to do that.

Speaker 2  20:42
These frameworks do exist. CIM has got the global professional marketing framework Morag, which which is a framework in which marketers are awarded a rating which is commensurate with their expertise. That sounds to me like the sorts of paths that we need to be taking as an industry to professionalize it

Speaker 3  20:59
is certainly an indication of the path we need to take, but we need to remember that marketing is a massively diverse discipline, so we're not judging everybody by the same yardstick. And a big part of the conversation that we had with Philip and Hayley and the others at the round table was what it means to gain a marketing skill. It's not just a skill, and it's not just gaining it once. I believe it was you, Philip, when we were talking, and I think this is in the mag as well, that that continuous learning, that the people you want to employ in the marketing sector are those who are hungry for knowledge, those who are willing to adopt skills and diplomas certificates, however, they are metric, and therefore are able to keep up with our changing industry. And also, Hayley also said something really interesting during that round table, Hayley said many things that were very interesting, but also that she was actually having to teach her organization what marketing strategy was all about. So actually, we're not just talking about upskilling the marketers. We have to upskill everyone to understand what marketing is and what it does, and I think the framework will help that as well.

Speaker 4  22:17
You're absolutely right. But you know, these frameworks are so crucial. I follow them myself. I'm a chartered marketer. It's something that's very important to me, and I'm a very big advocate of it. I've done my CIM qualifications, and I scoped those out myself, because to me, upon my own research, it felt like the best ones that I could have done, having been in the industry, having worked that aligned to actually what I'm doing on a day to day basis. So it's absolutely fantastic that we do these qualifications and that we as individuals get charted, but it's only as important as what our companies in which we work see it as as well. I had to do all of these off my own back. It wasn't something that my company pushed me to do it was something that I did for myself, because I felt that I had to justify my seat at the table. I've had to educate several people within the companies that I've worked for previously, and even some of these were the MDS of the companies that I was in, to actually sit with them and say, This is why I'm doing what I'm doing. I am trying to get the best out of your business, but I can only do that by aligning myself with the core of the business and having a hand in every entity. But how

Speaker 2  23:29
do we as marketers build that awareness within organizations? We're having to talk to do that. If you've done you've taken it on yourself to do it in your company. How as we as marketers replicate that process so we can build awareness within organizations and with non marketers.

Speaker 4  23:47
I think that, from my own personal experience, we have to be advocates of that. It has to be something that we create a talking point on. I am quite vocal on LinkedIn. I recently put out a post about whether or not marketing qualifications were actually still relevant in this day and age. You know, is it that we should Up skill and we should get a degree and that's the right way to follow, or should it be that we follow a CIM format? Or actually, do the companies that we work for, do they actually even care about this anymore? You know, I've worked for several different companies, and I've experienced so much. Fortunately, where I'm at now, they are very pro personal development. We're a technical industry, and everybody that sits there is either accredited or working towards an accreditation. And because they hold value, they hold weight. But yet it seems in a lot of industries that marketing doesn't sit within that same entity, and like Philip went back to earlier, you wouldn't use an accountant that isn't qualified healthcare you have to be skilled in you couldn't just be a doctor without any qualifications. And it just seems that we're given such a big responsibility to actually push these businesses along and to promote everything that is good. About them. But if we're not skilled ourselves, how can we do that the right way? And back to morags point on spending. You know, the budget. We don't want to be wasting a budget. And essentially that the company in the long term actually has no benefit into that, and people lose jobs at the end of it. There's

Speaker 2  25:16
an element of pick and choose, presumably. Then Philip to find organizations who value marketers, and more to the point, value professionalized marketers.

Speaker 5  25:25
It's an interesting point, so I might have a slightly different opinion in the context that is, is my personal belief is, if an organization has a marketing team or a marketing individual, they recognize there is a value in marketing, because marketing is a cost to a business. And if they didn't believe there was a value, that that role wouldn't exist. And particularly in smaller businesses, you know, if you're an owner of a business as well, you might well be the owner and the marketeer. And therefore people have dual kind of responsibilities, and it gets harder, you know, as you've got a smaller team, and it's kind of to do that in the context of things, you know, going back to the point, oh, if you take the framework, I mean, the great thing about the framework is it kind of works at both ends of the spectrum. So one is it always gives, from an organizational design point of view, a framework about what is marketing, what are the capabilities we need to have in the future? What are the sorts of roles, and what's the sorts of skills of people do we need as an organization, both now but also for the future? And how does that fit together structurally? And then, going back to Haley's point on the kind of individual aspect of the spectrum is it gives you an individual view of what marketing is from a development point of view, where you may want to develop your career, where you could move next, what opportunities may exist, that helps people then navigate into things like development and where they may need to close skills gaps and opportunities to do that in order to develop those capabilities to move into those roles. But I think the key point is, you know, if you think about organizational design, the world we live in today, you move so quickly. Organizations change so quickly. And my personal view in life is, you know, as an individual, you've got to make yourself employable. Because, you know, it's not necessarily the organisation's end fault whether jobs organization structures changes or their commercial position changes. So skills are an important part to make you employable for the future. And I think you know, going back to the individual development aspect, it's about how do you then develop your own plans and your own skills to make you a marketable, an advertiseable asset to an organization in the future to support that career development plan.

Speaker 2  27:22
Architects have to market themselves. Morag, some of them as part and parcel of that will have to do outreach, which is what Haley's done. Which is to say, you know, this is the benefits we can bring by professionalizing, by doing this development and in developing our marketing teams,

Speaker 3  27:38
it is all about perception. It's all too easy for myths to build up, for people to use shrinking language when they're talking about themselves. So I'm just a marketer, or I kind of fell into this, or not entirely sure how I wound up here, but hey, oh, look at me. I'm the head of marketing. They could have a phalanx of qualifications underneath them, but until the marketing community also stands up, squares its shoulders and says, I'm a marketer. I'm proud of this job, I'm talented, I'm qualified, and the people I work with and for in my community are equally talented and qualified, and I really feel that is one of the big problems, in fact, bigger than actual lack of qualification. I think the vast majority are probably highly qualified. It's telling people just how qualified you are. That's needed. So more people like

Speaker 2  28:39
Hayley or go in and be and actually sort of fly the flags for themselves and their team, that seems to be a large part of it Hayley,

Speaker 4  28:48
I completely agree, yes, but I think it's it's having that confidence to actually be able to do that as well and actually have that platform, because a lot of people feel, even As marketers, that their voices don't matter. I think for me, having been in small SMEs, where, going back to Philip's point, he says, If a company is employing you, then they see the value in you. I would actually disagree with that, having worked for small SMEs, I think sometimes the idea is there, but they don't fully understand what you can bring to the table and what marketing should bring to the table. So it goes back to my point of actually aligning yourself to the core of the business. I think there's still a perception there that we still just do branded pencils, or we're just the coloring in department, and that is still a very big perception. I've had people say that to me, actually in a professional setting as well, and I am comfortable saying, No, that's not actually what I do. That's not all I do. You're forgetting the strategy. You're forgetting, you know, all the other areas that I have to tie into within the business and pull everything together in order for us to push the messages that we need to out. I would argue, the fact that we. Have to be confident in the fact that we all feel this should be a framework or something that we're working towards. I've worked with people. I've I've got friends that are in the same industry that do feel that marketing still is just creating a very good video for Tiktok, and if it goes viral, fantastic. You've done your job, and again, it's, it's about educating the people that you're bringing through the people that are above you. And I think that it is our responsibility to do that as marketers. It's just, I think having the confidence to do that, the CIM for me and gaining the knowledge I have is a massive part of that for me, and standing up and saying, I'm a chartered marketer, and I'm an associate, and I'm I've got these additional bits and pieces that, to me, is so important, and that does come for me from what I get from the CIM. Companies can

Speaker 2  30:53
have the ambition, they can perceive the value in theory of marketers, but they don't always have the tools in place or the structures in place to execute that. And actually the reality can be quite different from the ambition,

Speaker 4  31:04
absolutely. And I've got to be honest with you, when I say I've educated my MDS on what it is I actually do. But actually, when I've done that, I've gained so much more respect, and they actually understand what it is that I'm trying to achieve. And once I've I've done that, and I've showed them a strategy, and we've aligned it all together, they are so on board with it, and I had a completely different turn of events. So, you know, we do need to do this as marketers. We do need to stand up for ourselves.

Speaker 5  31:34
It kind of links also the conversation earlier we're talking about EV. So you know, if you think about taking a product to market, you know, your price that you can deem in the market is often based around scarcity. It might be around based around quality of service, but as marketers, you need products or services then that then deliver against those requirements. And I think when you work in large organizations and you have different functions who are responsible for maybe service delivery or customer experience or pricing. You know, as a marketer in those organizations, you You often ask challenging questions around those facets, because you can't bring all of those facets together into a kind of proposition and a pricing proposition to the market unless they all align to that concept. So part, I think, of the role of market is, is around being that kind of linchpin between those kind of conversations. But if you're right, if you work, you know, for organizations that you know may not be used to those sorts of conversations, why am I being asked about my level of quality service or my net promoter score, you know, and it's not high enough. And this is implication on price. It creates that sometimes conflict, but that's part, I think, of marketing, and where marketing helps bring all of these things together, because otherwise they're just all separate functions, but don't actually translate into something that someone buys or someone experiences a result of that purchase. And I think that's what we bring to organizations and add value, and I think that's how we sell and demonstrate the value in organizations and what marketing does.

Speaker 2  32:57
Fascinating topic in solving marketing's professionalization crisis or not quite crisis. But you'll find out a lot more in his bumper edition of the magazine, and a huge piece in there with Hayley and with Philip and Morag at the round table breakfast, which is featured in the magazine. Of course, not the only thing featured in the magazine. And very quickly, we'll go through a whistle stop tour of perhaps some of the other highlights Morag.

Speaker 3  33:23
It's certainly a bumper edition, as always, and it will be a whistle stop tour because spoilers. I don't want to give it all away. I want you to go and read it. But as with all great publication, there are issues of light and shade. So I'd like to take two particular articles and talk about the light and shade. We'll talk about the shade. First. We've just been talking about the professionalization of marketing and why marketers need to demonstrate the caliber of their skills and abilities. And this is never more evident than with our profile e this issue, who is Simon gunning the CEO of calm. For those who don't know, calm is the campaign against living miserably, a very quirky and light hearted title for a very serious subject for people who have died of suicide. Now, the campaign against living miserably, you may have seen some of their adverts. They are very hard hitting. They are very keen to have very difficult conversations. We're very happy to say that marketers are being brave when it comes to some FMCG packaging, for example, but this, I think, is a really brave approach. It's not just Simon who's being brave. It's the people he has very difficult conversations with, the families of people who have died by suicide, and he is using all of his skills, all his team skills, all his agency skills, to address very difficult conversations. And it's very important that he does. We are very, very happy to talk about mental health these days, but only 45% of people are ever willing to talk about having suicidal thoughts. Years, and of the people who have died from suicide, 60% where documentation has been found, have never told anyone they feel that way. And it is an absolute myth that talking about suicide encourages suicide. In fact, Cambridge University found the opposite, precisely the opposite to be true. So what he is doing is a very important job. He is using every tool in the marketer's toolbox to do it. And I would really, really suggest you read it. And then when you've read it, listen to all of our wonderful podcasts, because let's get meta for a minute. We're writing about podcasts in this issue as well. We're talking about the value of podcasts, which you CIM listeners and readers, I am sure are very aware from our series of wonderful podcasts, we have approached podcasts from three different angles. One the branded podcast, we look at dish from Waitrose and why that has been such a success. And it's not just down to Angela Hartnett, lovely food or Nick Grimshaw, excellent emceeing. It's just a format that works and it works with a brand. Then we're looking at standard podcasts, entertainment podcasts out there in the wild, and how brand marketers can get involved with those, depending on your specific flavor of podcasts that you'd like. So we feature Olivia Atwood, who's a current reality show mega star. She's partnered with foxy bingo, for example. And we also look at salmon Pete staying relevant, which can be a little spicy, but we've put a a gentle version in the magazine featuring goats. And I definitely think you should watch that, because whatever is going on in your day, watch that podcast, and you'll have heard that I said, Watch that podcast.

36:43
Yes, I thought that was odd that you chose that word.

Speaker 3  36:47
This was a learning that I did not realize. And perhaps sim will take up on this, because I appreciate we are coming to you, live and direct and in your ears today, in your ears only. Podcasts still don't have an algorithm that makes them discoverable in audio format. YouTube is the world's biggest podcast platform. Not Spotify, not lemonade, not any of the others YouTube. That is because you can see it and because YouTube's algorithm will serve you that podcast unlike anything else. So increasingly, this is why you notice that very many podcasts have some kind of visual element, because then they can be found. It's all about discoverability, and that counts even in our wonderful little world of marketing. And that's one of the third areas we tackle. We look at the Places You'll Go show which features Mark Evans and Richie Mehta, and that's a marketing podcast for marketing people, just like Sims is a marketing podcast for marketing people. But that doesn't mean we can't have a bit of visual love as well.

Speaker 1  37:53
Looking for more ways to learn and upskill. CRM members can register now for our upcoming member exclusive webinars. More details available@crm.co.uk

38:02
forward, slash content. One

Speaker 2  38:04
of my favorite franchises in the magazine is debate, in which you get two marketers arguing the case, one side or the other. What's this one going to be about?

Speaker 3  38:12
Well, of course, we couldn't have marketers agreeing all the live long day. How boring would that be? This issue we're looking at age. So Forever Young is age really just a number. When it comes to marketing, we're always told personalize and segment based on behaviors, based on moments. Don't just look at the 55 plus cohorts and the 18 to 24 plus cohort. There are some standard life stages. You're not going to retire when you're 18, and you're much less likely to go to university when you're 45 that much we can say there'll be outliers, but they're very, very few. However, we still cling to some stereotypes, and age is one of them. I have never been more horrified than when I had to scroll down into that next cohort when filling in a form a lady should not reveal her age, but it's 21 plus 30, and those 30 years don't feel like they exist. Now. I love Gardener's World. I love me a bit of guddling around with a seedling, but I also love Red Hot Chili Peppers and a mosh pit. So come on, categorize that, guys. The debate is all about, do we let the algorithms take over and just throw out everything we knew about, demographics, segmenting, behavioral analysis, all of that stuff, and say, Nope, the algorithm will decide. And so we have one very well known advertising expert going, actually, yeah, the algorithm is going to teach us pretty much everything we need to know and how you need to target. But then there's another suggesting, hang on a minute. There's a reason we've been using these well trusted heuristics, because they're largely true and actually. You want to segment based on age, sometimes you want to use tried and trusted methods. Let's not chuck the baby out with the bath water or the granny.

Speaker 2  40:10
I'm going to quickly ask Hayley and Philip for their opinion on that debate. Which Which side do you stand on? Hayley,

Speaker 4  40:19
oh, I think I'm a bit on the fence. To be honest, I agree with both sides of it. I am of the opinion, and it definitely is, depends on on what you're marketing as to, you know, whether or not the age thing is, is an easy fix of drilling down on but also on the flip side, whilst the algorithm is fantastic, if you see mine, sometimes it is absolutely not what I am interested in. I've clicked on a video, or I've been served something, I've watched it, and I'm not really for me, but then I get served it, you know, simultaneously, afterwards, and it's not what I'm actually interested in. So I think whilst the algorithm is great in some aspects, I don't think that it can give us everything, and I do feel that you still need that traditional element to drill down on, actually an age criteria. It's a great

Speaker 5  41:08
question and conundrum, isn't it, because a bit like mooring. I mean, I remember my university days studying best practice, and I remember anything advertised to anywhere over 50, you could claim a free gold mantle clock as a result of a purchase of a product and more exactly right? And I think, you know, what we've certainly found out, you know, as time has gone on, is that everyone is different. Yeah, you might be the same age, you might look similar, you might have the same kind of demographics background, but your hobbies and interests are very different. And I think where it becomes a challenge for organizations, particularly brands, where they're selling products to large numbers of consumers, and there's a kind of economic argument, particularly things like advertising, around using demographics as a kind of means of targeting. But the reality is, as we all know, is we're all different. So the question some is the balance between the economics to reach and engage an audience versus a one to one kind of personalized kind of message. So my general view is both are right and Bill I Haley, I don't think you can go out on one or the other, because life is not that simple. We all know that

Speaker 2  42:07
well. You know the great news is for both of you is you ponder your decision and then, because, as we know, catalyst exclusive to members is digital, you get the chance to vote in the magazine, and we can collect the answers. So I would urge you to have a think about it and vote when you get your copy. And I also urge all of our audience today to do the same. It sounds like a great issue packed with stuff. We've got Hayley and Philip on the round table. We've got an amazing profile of Simon Gunning from calm. And we've got bags of other stuff, including all your latest CIM news. It'd be fantastic. That's your super Sora edition of catalyst coming out on the 10th of April. But before that, I want to say thank you to all three of my fantastic guests today. That's Hayley Knight, Philip Ricketts and, of course, Morag codiford Jones. Thank you very much for your time and insights all, and I hope you'll come back on the show some sunny day in the future.

Speaker 3  42:59
Thank you so much for having me. Man, thanks for everything. Ben, thanks, man,

Speaker 1  43:05
if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the CIM marketing podcast on your platform of choice. If you're listening on Apple podcasts, please leave us a rating and review. We'd love to hear your feedback.