Maybe you have heard this adage: “We offer three kinds of service: Good-Cheap-Fast. GOOD service CHEAP won’t be FAST. GOOD service FAST won’t be CHEAP. FAST service CHEAP won’t be GOOD.”

It could be describing the struggles of marketers and ad agencies the last few years.

It’s been a big year for the Canadian ad industry, says Susan Krashinsky, marketing reporter for the Globe and Mail, Marketers under Greater Pressure to Control Costs. But that hasn’t stopped companies from cutting their advertising and marketing investments.

The challenge is agreeing with a client on the measurement of the effectiveness of the marketing and advertising work.

“The chief marketing officer of the world’s second-largest advertiser, Unilever, said that the company is looking for $500-million (U.S.) in savings next year. Part of those savings will come by reducing the company’s marketing staff by 12 percent; moving its advertising dollars out of traditional media and into digital channels; and trying to curb the fees it pays ad agencies,” Krashinsky writes.

You can thank the recession, as well as a sluggish climb out, for this trend. But that isn’t all. There is an over-reaching lack of spending growth in advertising dollars, and marketers are being asked to do more, faster with less. Why? Part of it is because of a basic misunderstand in the C-suite of the value of marketing.

“They’re just not seeing growth, in a lot of industries. They have to cut costs – so you can’t fault them,” Krashinsky quotes David Leonard, president and chief operating officer of DDB Canada, as saying. “The objection I have is where there’s no understanding for the contributions marketing makes to the brand. These people, unfortunately, know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. We as an industry should be fighting to change the compensation model.”

Fighting Back: It’s not About Slashing Prices

To stay alive in this tough climate a lot of marketers were under pressure by procurement reps to deliver results at rock bottom prices. To stay alive, some had to bow to the pressure, accepting extremely low offers for work. But, it inevitably leads to poor quality work and many have felt that it has hurt the industry all around. Continue reading →

At a certain point in your marketing career, it might feel the next step is to move into management in marketing departments or firms. But is it the right move? Management has to take so much more in account than marketing, including the ins and outs of the overall business.

“Becoming a manager requires a transformation of your professional identity,” says Linda A. Hill, a professor at Harvard Business School in Are You Cut Out for Management?

Marketers who have an eye on management would be smart to remember that soft skills are often as important as specialization

In fact, moving into management means you will be doing less of the pure hands-on marketing and more ensuring that everyone is on the same page working toward the same vision. If you live for the rush of campaign and the hands-on creation of ad packaging, branding and so on, management may not be for you.

“The first question you’ve got to ask is, ‘Why do you want it?’ You may think that’s my natural progression in my career, but it’s not the natural progression for everybody … So the advice I always give people is to really understand what the job entails and make sure that’s how you want to spend your time,” Mike Indursky, current President of beauty marketer Bliss World, was quoted as saying in Can Marketers Jump to General Management? Two Execs on Making the Shift.

Who would make a Good Manager?

For both Industry and Anton, their success has come from being big-picture people who happened to come up in the industry through marketing. Continue reading →