You Are Not Alone

My first realization of the magnitude of the problem in high-tech marketing started in Ohio. I worked at a Midwestern software developer. Yes -- there is software development in Ohio; no joke though I admit it is a bit of an oxymoron. In the 9 years I spent at Macola, crawling my way up the ladder from Marketing Communications to run marketing and its team of nearly 30, I saw the constant churn of marketing leaders. I endured the sales and marketing meetings in which I was informed that the leads we generated were no good. I was shocked how our smart, but techie, CEO was squirreled away in his office, coding instead of spending time out with the customers and resellers. I was outraged when I couldn't get the CEO or the head of engineering to see where the market was going in software applications and that we either needed to rewrite our code or niche ourselves and increase price. I was in a no win situation. So when I got the call to move out to Silicon Valley to work for Oracle, I jumped at the chance. I wanted to work for people that "got it." And I watched the company I had left miss the move to GUI and software-as-a-service, and sell itself to Exact in 2000 for its customer and support base revenue.

It was the winter of El Nino when I arrived from Ohio to the massive glass doors of "the Emerald City," Oracle Corporation. Looking back 10 years, I realize I should have seen El Nino's torrential winds and rain, that pelted me daily for 3 months as an omen. I did not. Within that first 9 months, I had 4 bosses, survived a power struggle for the small team I had inherited after my first 2 executives left , and saw marketing organizations blown-up and retooled. I dug my heels in because I new I had the chance to learn from one of the best marketers ever: Larry Ellison.

When I began at Oracle in my role as Director of Product Marketing, I was part of a development organization. (That changed later. Whew!!) It was unsettling for me to be part of development. It must be the same kind of feeling a young man experiences the first time he enters a lingerie shop to buy a girlfriend an intimate gift. But I had just moved 2,300+ miles and figured, hey, it was Oracle. Larry had to know what he was doing.

I am a business marketer: Not a techie. I had arm wrestles with product management who used my lack of "really deep" technical expertise as a reason I couldn't do the right positioning. I was sandwiched in between the sales guy with Rolex and the pipeline and "developer" with the braniac stare, and more developed logic in arguments and spreadsheets. And I was managing a killer team to launch our first integrated suite of CRM (Customer Relationship Management applications). As we readied the entry of our product marketing messages I was handed an advertisement that Larry had written for my team to execute upon. The ad was full page slick targeted at CRM magazines, Oracle Magazine. The headline: Don't Be Held Hostage By Your CRM System. And the graphic? Well, of course it featured a pair of handcuffs and one of the tools Larry loves to use to force differentiation -- a competitive chart on the features, targeted against Siebel Systems. I knew the market would backlash and hate us.

This was a clear disconnect between what potential customers needed to hear and what we wanted to say. I knew if the ad hit the market it would hurt us rather than help us: We lacked credibility in this space. In the end, the handcuffs were dropped and the feature chart publicized. The market response was less negative than it would have been.

Bottom line: It isn't just me. There is a problem in high-tech marketing. As marketers, we share in both the issues and the solutions.

Later -- Lisa

You Learn

Fear of Marketing. Did we get your attention? Is it a new Quentin Tarantino movie or a new anxiety disorder published in Psychology Today?

The answer: Fear of Marketing is neither breaking news nor a summer blockbuster. Think of it as a slow burn. A “fight or flight response executives in technology-driven companies experience with marketing. Primal? Yes. Overstated? No.

In a November 29, 2007 article, BusinessWeek ran the headline and the story about the short-shelf life of the CMO, the Chief Marketing Officer. They cited the fact that the average CMO holds their position an average of 26 months. Other statistics from the CMO Advisory Council cite anywhere from 18-28 months, depending upon the survey. From my two roles as a CMO for Akamai Technologies and Mindjet I can verify the tenure is on the shorter side of the stat. The revolving door of marketing leadership in technology companies is a result of an innate, Darwinist approach to understanding, accepting and empowering the role and function of marketing.

The fear and the result of that visceral reaction to marketing creates high turnover, high costs and lost market momentum, costing investors and shareholders billions of wasted spend. The problem is so real and prolific that my business partner, Michael Bloom, and I have launched a new business, Cinterim, and a new business model to offer an alternative to CEOs, Venture Capitalists and investors/shareholders that have both fear but more loathing for marketing.

The issues senior executives face, including the most senior marketing leader, is many. One of the most glaring dysfunctions is the lack of dialogue between senior leadership and its board to analyze and address why marketers and their teams “appear” to fall short. This core conflict and “head in the sand” approach exist in light of the CEO’s never-ending quest for great marketing and an organizational distaste for being market-driven. It is this very real tension and duplicitous dynamic that has provided the foundation for this blog and the book we are writing; Fear of Marketing: Why the companies that connect people are disconnected.

We’d like to hear from you. Are you a senior marketer? Are you on the hot seat, perpetually? Are you a CEO wondering why marketing is failing yet again? Tell us your story. Facing the Fear of Marketing is our first step.