Marketing’s future is directing disruption

“We have reached the retrofitting limit.” That was the message of Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone, Gartner senior director, in the first keynote at this year’s Marketing Symposium.

Retrofitting is what marketing did in response to disruptions like the internet, then social media, then mobile. It is what many expect to continue to do in response to the end of third-party cookies, the growth of privacy regulations and the rise of generative AI. It’s no longer enough.

“The waves are about to change,” said Matt Moorut, senior director, analyst. Disruptions will exponentially increase, and we will see “waves of convergent disruption.” There will not be the time or capacity to retrofit existing marketing methods to the multiple waves of new challenges.

From adapt to deliver to directing disruption. LaRocca-Cerrone and Moorut emphasized there is no plan for directing disruption that will work for everyone. In broad strokes, they indicated three areas where intentional planning will be essential:

• Building to co-exist with AI.
• Selective collaboration.
• A unique value proposition.

Enabling AI. Marketers already understand they will need to live with AI, especially genAI. Seven percent of marketing budgets will be heading in that direction this year. Already, many marketers are using aspects of genAI as tools. The way to direct disruption, however, is to cease to see AI as a tool and start to see it as an actor, as a member of the marketing team.

That implies giving AI an appropriate degree of anonymity. It can go beyond responding to human prompts and directions; it can already recommend actions; one day it will be ready to take those actions by itself. We may not be there yet, but this is the time to begin planning for that day, in particular by reflecting on how team talent and technology align.

Selective collaboration. The Gartner analysts presented alarming statistics suggesting that marketers spend as much as 48% of their time on cross-functional collaboration. The bad news is that other functions, at a rate of 55%, did not find marketing’s contribution helpful.

The solution? Being intentionally selective about collaboration. Be clear in advance on why, when and how the marketing function will collaborate.

Marketing’s value proposition. This may seem the broadest stroke of all, but marketing’s value proposition for a brand is, said LeRocca-Cerrone, not growth but differentiation. In fact, the presenters had in mind a more subtle model with differentiation as a way to become visible and appealing to the customer, thus driving tangible growth. Differentiation comes about primarily through story-telling; effective brand narratives that engage the customer, a specialty, surely, of CMOs.

Why we care. The keynote at the Gartner Symposium usually seizes the chance to disrupt expectations and even alarm the audience. The big theme last year was giving up on the 360-degree view of the customer as too expensive at best, unobtainable at worst.

This year, the alarming message was that the coming waves of disruption require a quite different response from what has gone before. They are likely right, but, as they think they would admit, much flesh needs to be added to the bones of AI becoming a team member or marketing hesitating to collaborate.

The value proposition model, however, even very simply stated, looks immediately fruitful.