Larry Weber on the Future of Marketing
| posted by David Rogers(Roughly transcirbed, live, from an interview by Lois Kelley at the 2006 Innovative Marketing Conference)
A few provocative comments from Larry Weber, founder W2 (namesake of Weber Shandwick and more):
THE PURPOSE OF THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT:
To aggregate customers.
WHAT ABOUT SALES?
I find sales as rather agrarian in nature. It's their job, after we've planted all the seeds, the excitement... to get out and sell. I think sales should report to marketing. That'sll never happen, because most sales people are so type A. Marketers are environmental -- we create environment of which sales people should have an easier time to sell.
ON CMO'S:
"Everytime a category of business gets really screwed up, we put a C on it and say 'You figure it out!'"
What does it take to be a successful CMO? Patience... Flexibility to work in old media while yoiu move into the new media.I would take a new CMO to see my TiVO and my teenage daughters -- who have not watched an ad in 2 years.
THE WEB:
The web is not a channel, it is the closest thing to the physical world we've got.
MOBILE MARKETING:
Will be huge. It will be the only device or platform that is truly individual. Have you been to the airport lately? There's fewer and fewer laptops -- it's the Treos and the blackberry's. But the mobile platform will be increasingly important. The buyers are not going to be ad agencies, it's Microsoft, Google... not the Verizons, etc. (they're hardware makers, like the HP and Compaq's of PCs).
MIT's Media Lab has a prototype butterflly phone that unfolds to a large screen. I walked by the Coke machine, and it starts playing this very sensual South Pacific music, and this very sexy voice comes out of the Coke machine saying "Larry, wouldn't an ice cold Coke tast great right now?"
WORD OF MOUTH MARKETING:
It will be a B movie. Any WOM that compensates people in ANY form (whether it's free deoderant or anything) will not work in the end, especially as WOM goes onto the blogosphere, True WOM is really just transparent recommendations. In that, it does have validity. But the larger thing that's getting the buzz right now is compensated word of mouth.
PUBLIC RELATIONS: Going through drastic change, still a uncreative, unthoughtful, lazy, not transparent enough disicpline. Advertising and PR are not an industry. Media & Entertainment are the industry -- we wrap around it.
Perhaps companies don't need a PR dept anymore? They probably need them as a transition -- but keep them on a tight leash as study tne new media. We have people calling up top bloggers to take them out to lunch (like used to).
ADVERTISING:
I have very little respect for, as you know, even though it's so deep into our culture. The sad thing is we watch the super bowl ads and just laught. 2/3 of the ads told us nothing about the company, they just tried to get us to digital destinations. (this as future -- driving to digital destination, not branding) permission based emails on the rise, paying people to watch stuff
Digitas model is probably the way agencies are going to go -- becoming more of a relationship connector. There will always be a better search engine optimization... etc. The job of the next gen agency is to understand the components of the relationship engine.
THREE QUESTIONS posed to the audience, with much debated responses:
- what is the purpose of the marketing department?
- what functions does it need to encompass?
- who do you need?
What do you think??
