Ever since the 1990s, quite a few studies have focused on the diminishing role of marketing in the organization. The premise that marketing is losing its importance in the overall scheme of things is supported by statistics regarding the reduced tenure of chief marketing officers (CMO) as well as the reduced budget and top management time devoted to marketing.
An acknowledged branding and marketing “guru”, David Aaker addresses the issue of the reduced tenures of CMOs in his latest work. In a direct address to the CMOs, he lays emphasis on the need for a central marketing team that captures the synergies across “silos”, that he describes in the organizational context as “a metaphor for organizational units that contain their own management team and lack the motivation or desire to work with or even communicate with other organizational units” (p. 2).
Aaker puts to good use his vast consulting and research experience and draws heavily from his own compendium, including his past works on branding and brand portfolio strategy; firsthand experience with his clients at his consulting firm, Prophet; discussions with top executives in partnership with Erich Joachimsthaler and Dentsu Brand Consulting Group that was published as Brand Leadership in 2000; and a series of interviews with CMO levels in over 40 firms.
Aaker sets the stage for his premise right in the preface, declaring that “spanning silos is, in my view, the marketing problem of our time” (p. xiii). In order to reduce five key barriers facing CMOs and help them achieve six marketing program “enhancements, the book elaborates on seven challenges, or, CMO “action items”. These specific figures should give us a fair idea that Aaker's work is typical of the practical guidebooks.
The book is organized into nine chapters, of which seven are actually numbered. The Introduction and Conclusion are not “included” in the numbered sequence; with the introduction setting the need for a “new CMO” and highlighting “six deadly sins” of a silo structure. Providing a road map for CMO success are the ensuing seven chapters:
- 1.
Chapter 1: “Find the right role and scope – the CMO's new job description”. Aaker identifies five different roles for the CMO team reflecting differing levels of influence and authority and provides a template to the practitioner to identify the right role. The chapter also considers two important aspects regarding the evolution of roles and the scope of the CMO team.
- 2.
Chapter 2: “Gain credibility and buy‐in here”. Aaker identifies five routes to not just get the CEO's support but also get the silo teams to cooperate in the CMO team's efforts.
- 3.
Chapter 3: “Use Teams and Other Routes to Silo Linking”. Emphasis is placed on cross‐silo teams here, with other routes, too, being identified to link silos.
- 4.
Chapter 4: “Develop a common planning process and information system”. Aaker contends here that it is optimal to have both a planning process, including templates and frameworks, and a supporting information system that are the same across silos.
- 5.
Chapter 5: “Adapt the master brand to silo markets”. This chapter underscores the need for having a “master brand” across silos. The routes could be through having a standardized brand or by adapting a master brand to silo contexts.
- 6.
Chapter 6: “Prioritize brands in the portfolio”. Having too many brands with too few priorities and too little leverage can hamper creation of strong brands and effective marketing. Aaker addresses each of the three challenges here and provides appropriate frameworks. The chapter ends with the contention that “the CMO is usually in the best position to address the three issues: too many brands, too few priorities, and too little leverage” (p. 169). It is my contention that this aspect of the CMO's role could have merited elaboration instead of the seemingly perfunctory treatment of a small paragraph at the end of the chapter, making it more of an afterthought.
- 7.
Chapter 7: “Create winning marketing in a silo world”. This chapter heading is titled wrongly in the introductory chapter's roadmap of the book (p. 24)! The agenda here is to find synergy between central marketing and the silo teams' functions. The chapter addresses five questions:
What are the routes to generating potentially great ideas that draw on the silo realities?
How much scope and authority should the silo marketing team have?
How many communication partners should you have?
How do you allocate resources across silos?
How do you sell the brand vision internally so that the marketing will become more consistent and reinforcing?
It is my contention that the last point is important enough to “deserve” a chapter to itself rather than being subsumed under a set of topics. It is not as if Aaker has not elaborated on a point in an ensuing chapter (p. 111). The contention here is that since the entire book is about garnering synergies across various organizational units, the topic of “internal marketing” could have been given its due.
A marketing academic, I am always in search of substantive writings in the area of “strategic” marketing (as if marketing could be anything but strategic!). Consequently, I could not help but compare this latest offering of Aaker with Professor Nirmalya Kumar's book, also published by Harvard Business Press, Marketing as Strategy: Understanding the CEO's Agenda for Driving Growth and Innovation (released in India by Penguin Books India, September 2004 (HC); April 2006 (PB)).
The reader in search of a quick‐read “how‐to” guide may opt for either of Aaker or Kumar. The more serious corporate marketer and the marketing academic will find the two works complementing each other quite well.
It is to be stated here that the book is not without its glitches. For one, Aaker assumes quite a bit from the reader:
Page 107: “brand identity model”.
Page 200: the mention of the elephant looking different from different perspectives without so much as a reference to the parable, etc.
Although the book does acknowledge works quoted (by way of endnotes), there seem to be quite a few omissions in this regard – making such paragraphs read like unsubstantiated observations:
Page 16: the second‐last paragraph on practices at several organizations could have done with a couple of references (or, a mention that the observations stems from Aaker's own research).
Pages 87‐8: the paragraph explicitly mentions extensive studies and guidelines based on the “resulting literature,” yet there is no reference to the source(s).
Pages 110‐11: brand strategy frameworks used by Unilever, a major global firm, GM and JetBlue Airways are mentioned but without a single source being quoted.
Page 191, the second‐last paragraph quotes a study without proper referencing.
Unlike Nirmalya Kumar, Aaker prefers anonymity to some of his stories (especially in the introductory chapters), and this might “tell” on the credibility. for example, the Introduction begins with a “true story” and describes the experience of the CEO of an unnamed “large global firm” (p. 1). This by itself would have been okay. However, Aaker goes on to quote another story in the same vein, beginning the next paragraph (p. 2) with “True story.” What slightly rankles in this latter description is that it is from Aaker's own consultancy assignment. I'm sure the readers would not doubt Aaker's claims about his consultancy experience without him having to assert that it is a “true story”.
Figures 3‐2, 4‐1, etc. seem to have been drawn without much attention to detail. For instance, Figure 3‐2 (p. 92) bundles up group formats, roles and organizational structures in a series of boxes arranged horizontally. A little bit of care here would have made for a more precise and visually appealing representation. In Figure 4‐1 (p. 103) a uni‐directional arrow represents the “connect” between information system and the planning “boxes”. Would not a bi‐directional arrow have captured the relation better? Also, the elements within the information system “box” are represented within separate ovals. No “connect” between these, uh?!
Also, the questions and sub‐questions in Chapters 5 and 6 could have been represented as an end‐of‐chapter diagram/box ‐ since the book is meant for practitioners, such a framework might have been better.
It did feel odd to find the mention of Aaker's brand consultancy firm on page 120 read thus – “Prophet, a brand‐based strategy consulting firm mentioned earlier … ”. Why such an explanatory “introduction” well into the book? Readers ought to know Aaker and his affiliation quite well from the jacket of the book as well as the prior mentions. So, this mention in third‐person seems quite out‐of‐place, especially given the fact that Aaker uses the first‐person to good effect elsewhere in the book.
The introductory quote in chapter 5 on sculpture is ascribed to Pablo Picasso (p. 123). I'd like to be challenged here, but my search led to the mention of Auguste Rodin who is reported to have said “I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need” when asked how a block of stone could become a lion.
The reader may not be faulted for coming off with a perception that Aaker has taken “positions” and has written the book more in defense of his side of the story rather than an objective assessment of possible effects/ramifications. For example, the introductory chapters read as if Aaker is advocating the centralized marketing organizational structure as a “panacea” to all marketing “evils”. Also, in Chapter 7, the author seems to be jumping quickly and conveniently to his preferred conclusion (p. 191, para. 1). Likewise, Aaker advocates the CMO structure by conveniently concluding that if CMOs control allocation of the marketing budget and favor silos that advance a master brand, this will lead to providing “a way to encourage and sensitize managers to brand‐building activities” (p. 192). How about this practice promoting “groupthink”? The author is silent on the other fallouts of this and other practices. The reader might be pardoned for coming out with the idea that CMO stands for central marketing organization!, I have a feeling that the C‐suite reader might come away a tad disappointed.
The final chapter, “Conclusion,” presents an assessment guide. However, a couple of inadequacies tend to leave the work seem incomplete. Page 198, para. 1‐2 suggests use of an audit tool. An interpretation of scores could have helped the practitioner here. Also, the chapter goes on to mention that “other questions might be added.” Does this mean that the template/audit is incomplete? There is no clarity on how many questions can be added. This might leave a feeling of emptiness in the eager practitioner‐reader who has all along in the preceding chapters been led to think in more “analytical” terms. Figure C‐1 reads more like a hurried summary of preceding chapters without the relevant sub‐questions covered. Would it have been better to give chapter‐wise audit? With an additional annexure to the book with all the audit questions in one single “flow”? Fig C2 (pp. 202‐4) presents the action plan that summarizes the entire book. Here, too, the “construct” and interpretation of the dimensions of impact and feasibility have been left to the CMO.
A final matter of worry is the presence of a number of typos (page 105: “… on the where the silo unit is.”; page 162: “P&G prioritized counties … ” where the reference is to countries; page 174: “…campaign form Germany.” instead of “… from … ”; page 184: “mangers”; page 187: “… the CMO to manage more efficiency the different … ”; page 201: “difficultly” instead of the correct “difficulty”). This list is only indicative! Coming from the Harvard Business Press stable, this matter is jarring, to say the least.
In sum, the C‐suite reader would need to expressly overlook the shortcomings and focus solely on the matter of synergistically reducing silo problems.
