CEOs and their leadership teams are well aware of the rapid-fire disruptions taking place around their business models. One visible example is the practice of showrooming, whereby customers browse in brick-and-mortar stores but use their mobile devices to find better prices online. According to comScore, 4 out of 10 consumers showroom first, and then purchase online.1 Some retailers have rolled out price-matching guarantees in an attempt to counter the trend. But discounting is not a long-term solution in the Internet age, when global pricing transparency makes low price an indefensible strategy.
At a time when business models are continuously challenged, businesses that want to stand out must ensure that every customer knows exactly what the company stands for. Target, for example, has successfully staked out a position as a “high design” retailer at an affordable price. Target understands that positioning means more today than a snappy tag line hatched by advertising madmen. In a digital world, it’s no longer possible for a gap to exist between what a business says and what it does.
That’s why brand positioning is no longer a marketing problem – it’s a company problem. In today’s environment, in which bad news travels at the speed of a tweet, positioning is not just about message consistency, it’s about survival.
Every CEO needs to clearly articulate the urgency of this new reality and unite the organization around a common strategy and a consistent message. So where does marketing fit in? Marketing must support the CEO in determining the right positioning for the organization, but it also has a bigger role to play: providing the glue that binds the company’s different parts around the promise.
This broader role requires a significant rethinking of structure, process, and skills – a transformation that is well under way at many marketing organizations. More than two thirds of marketers in a 2012 survey by ITSMA, an association for IT services organizations, say marketing has transformed or is undergoing a transformation.