Marketing Mandate: Connect The Dots

Marketing leaders still struggle to define an integrated marketing strategy and execute a consistent, compelling brand experience for customers and prospects. Why? Because they operate in marketing channel or product silos, create vision without making the customer central, and deploy vast media campaigns that can't alone deliver the full brand experience. The CMO should be a "chef d'orchestre," a conductor who assertively defines the brand and carefully knits together all of her company's offers and resources to best meet the needs of the consumer groups it serves. This first in a series of documents provides the framework to reposition marketing as the steward of the brand experience across all parts of the company. The marketing leader's role will be to connect the dots across the marketing mix, commandeer all the opportunities, and involve diverse companywide resources to deliver value — that brand experience — to the consumer.