SPOTLIGHT ON THE NEW MARKETING ORGANIZATION

Spotlight

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ARTWORK Markus Linnenbrink DIEDRITTEDIMENSION, 2011 JVA/Prison, Düsseldorf Rath, Germany

The Ultimate Marketing Machine
Most marketing organizations are stuck in the last century. Here’s how the best meet the challenges of the digital age. by Marc de Swaan Arons, Frank van den Driest, and Keith Weed

July–August 2014 Harvard Business Review 55

SPOTLIGHT ON THE NEW MARKETING ORGANIZATION

In the past decade, what marketers do to engage customers has changed almost beyond recognition. With the possible exception of information technology, we can’t think of another discipline that has evolved so quickly. Tools and strategies that were cutting-edge just a few years ago are fast becoming obsolete, and new approaches are appearing every day.
Yet in most companies the organizational structure of the marketing function hasn’t changed since the practice of brand management emerged, more than 40 years ago. Hidebound hierarchies from another era are still commonplace. Marketers understand that their organizations need an overhaul, and many chief marketing o cers are tearing up their org charts. But in our research and our work with hundreds of global marketing organizations, we’ve found that those CMOs are struggling with how to draw the new chart. What does the ideal structure look like? Our answer is that this is the wrong question. A simple blueprint does not exist. Marketing leaders instead must ask, “What values and goals guide our brand strategy, what capabilities drive marketing excellence, and what structures and ways of working will support them?” Structure must follow strategy—not the other way around. Former McDonald’s CMO Larry Light understood that principle when he became the chief brand
56 Harvard Business Review July–August 2014

o cer of the InterContinental Hotels Group,