The Last Word | State of Business magazine | fall 2011 | J. Mack Robinson College of Business

Georgia State University | J. Mack Robinson College of Business

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The Last Word

Marketing 20/20. Are you Ready for It?

by Jo Ann Herold, president of AMA Atlanta


	Jo Ann Herold, president of AMA Atlanta

The Atlanta Chapter of the American Marketing Association recently convened its Executive Advisory Board to discuss the changes marketers can expect by 2020. The members include senior level marketing executives from 21 companies such as Arby’s Restaurant Group, AirTran Airways, Coca-Cola, Cox, 22 Squared, Kodak, Engauge, Venadar and many others.

Elizabeth Ward of Thought Partners was commissioned to write the white paper, which subsequently was published in several blogs and featured in the bimonthly marketing column that Robinson’s Ken Bernhardt writes for the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Three themes ran throughout the discussion:

There are shifting sands in the relationship between brands and consumers.

There are no more secrets - for anyone. We are in an era of two-way transparency. Marketers know more than ever about consumers - more detailed and more personal information. Some is gained through data capture and some volunteered or made public by the consumer through social media. Consumers are doing their own research, too, and looking “behind the curtain” of what brands publicly share. Consumer desire to “know the 411” goes beyond the product - they want to choose the company they do business with, and they’re savvy enough to notice differences between the talk and the walk.

It’s all about me! The consumer has a new demand for personalization.

Demand for personalization and customization is growing exponentially. For consumers, it’s about a more relevant and therefore more optimized experience. In the expectation of receiving a more personalized experience, consumers are willing to share a huge amount of information. But marketers are just starting to figure out how to use that information to deliver truly customized experiences.

There is a paradigm shift in the role of marketing and the DNA of the marketing organization.

The dramatic changes in how marketers connect with consumers are causing marketing organizations to rethink in systemic ways how they practice their craft. For clients and agencies, organizational structures, ways of working and the skill sets in demand will look dramatically different in the next decade.

Organizational structure is one of the areas where the transformation is underway. Specifically:

There is a new model. Companies are looking for more than new products to ensure their futures - they’re looking for new systems and new ways of doing business.
Startups are becoming corporate role models because they are set up to handle rapid change, morphing job descriptions, operating free of the shackles and blinders of “how we did it last year,” and being at home on the steep part of the learning curve.

The structure and roles of marketing departments must evolve, as lines become more blurred between areas of accountability and more seats need to be pulled up to the main brand management table. As one attendee put it, “everyone is in marketing now.”

To read the Marketing 20/20 White Paper, click here »

Jo Ann Herold is vice president of brand marketing at Arby’s and president of AMA Atlanta. She formerly was vice president of marketing and chief marketing officer of HoneyBaked Ham and worked as a regional marketing manager for Shoney’s and Captain D’s for five years. She also has been head of marketing for the Jackson, MS Zoo and has owned her own marketing firm. She is a member of the 2012 Leadership Atlanta Class.

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