EDWARD S. SUCHERMAN & ASSOCIATES LTD.

Before I begin discussing the single thread that weaves its way through your company, circa 2009, I need to do some introspection.  Before I talk to you, I need to understand myself.

And first, I think I need to define for my readers/listeners what I believe (in marketing).  My belief system is based upon many years – an entire career (I am 61 years old and began seriously studying marketing and advertising in my Junior undergraduate year at the University of Illinois, when I was 20) and many hundreds of real life experiences with many companies in many industries.  I have led marketing efforts with industrial marketers, business to business marketers, and business to consumer marketers: manufacturers, retailers, professionals (medical, accounting, and law), and other service providers.  I have reached male, female, child, teenage, adult, and senior markets.   I have not worked on International marketing.

I believe that marketing has tremendous power.  It can define and lead an entire company as nothing else.  It can win elections.  It can sell products. It can motivate executives, managers, and employees.  People who have worked with me know that my marketing plans, which are essentially budgetary and planning tools, are always written as narratives – stories.  Companies are made of people, and people are not motivated by numbers alone.  They are motivated by stories.  I am not negating the importance of accounting – nothing is more essential.  Working closely with a CFO will almost always help a Marketing Director do a better job.  But only a relatively few people in any company can fully relate to the CFO’s world.  Every single person can relate to and be inspired by a Marketing Director.  He or she can inspire a good company to become great.

This leads me to define what I believe is the role of marketing in our entire culture, beyond just driving sales and building brands.  It is to restore brotherhood in America.  Marketing, with its far reach, can accomplish this, and it may be the only thing that can accomplish this.  We can do this as we sell products.  Believe me, I believe in the strongest possible marketing efforts, in stark capitalism, in drastically increasing company revenues while taking market share and crushing the competition.  I am no George HW Bush – forget the thousand points of light, the kinder, gentler nation.  I am all for brutal capitalism. I am not asking you to ease up in your marketing efforts – I am asking you to expand upon them.

But this does not mean that we need to be brutal to each other.  It does not mean that our politicians should care more about defaming the other party than about governing our nation.  It does not mean we cannot disagree, pro or con, with gay rights without holding loud protests at army funerals or beating up gays; it does not mean that we cannot disagree with abortion without blowing up clinics; it does not mean we cannot open a door for each other or let someone merge ahead of us on the highway.  It does not mean that we should allow a CFO to create a plan to fire older employees (or not hire them) because their health care benefits might cost the company more than those of a younger person. (I have witnessed this first hand.) It does not mean that 160,000 American kids (that is the actual government estimate!) stay home from school each day because they are afraid of bullies.

Liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, Northern and Southern, young and old, Christian and Jew, black and white, gay and straight, have stood side by side, fought, and died together tens of thousands of times defending this country.  Neighbors are not your enemies – we are all just Americans with different viewpoints.  Al Qaida is the enemy, not your fellow American.

We need to frame our marketing messages to promote brotherhood and unity.  Americans are not very nice to each other right now.  We need to be.  When we fight together, as one, the world has no equal.  When we constantly fight against one another, then, as Thomas Friedman reminds us, the world is “hot, flat, and crowded.”  If we ever want to lead again – not just militarily, but economically, in terms of our standard of living, health, longevity, happiness, etc. – we need to do new things but also old things.  One of those is to fight together, as one.  We are all in this together.  We need to export hope, not fear.

Another is to invent our way back to the top.

You might think this has nothing to do with marketing.  I believe it has EVERYTHING to do with marketing.

Tags: Advertising, Role of Marketing, marketing message //