‘Carrying masses of baggage’: Why are marketers on the defensive?
Fighting to protect their budgets and under greater scrutiny than their peers – who often believe they can do the job better – should marketers be on the defensive?
Marketers frequently feel the need to defend their budgets, strategies, plans and marketing executions, according to Cheryl Calverley.
Speaking at Marketing Week’s Leadership Summit in May, Calverley, co-founder of youth club movement The Den Club and former Eve Sleep CEO, explained marketers must tackle this sense of vulnerability.
Is this just the result of accountability in action, or are senior marketers expected to show their working in more detail than their C-suite colleagues? The latter, says Calverley – but not entirely without reason.
“You are always in a place of asking people to trust you and believe you,” she says. “You are wanting to try things, because that’s the job remit. It’s marketing, it’s creativity. If you don’t try new things then you will get your lunch eaten by a competitor who is doing exactly what you’re not doing. It’s unique in the business.”
