数字时代首席营销官的生存之道

    广告狂人时代，营销精英们往往在午餐时斟上一杯马天尼酒，酒过三巡之后，借着微醺的酒意酝酿电视广告创意，策划广告战。然而，随着20世纪90年代网景浏览器（Netscape）的崛起和数字化革命的发展，这样的日子已经一去不复返。

    但是，随着Facebook和Twitter等社交媒体日益深入人心，市场营销中的“数字化”已经不再只是简单地追逐、了解和转发新闻了。

    大多数大型公司的首席营销官都深知这一点——IBM于10月中旬开展的一项颇具影响力的调查显示，他们对此深表赞同。但是，他们却拿不出应对的办法。

    多产作家、长期担任美国西北大学凯洛格商学院（the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University）营销学教授的菲利普·科特勒解释道：“毫无疑问，过去的市场营销要容易得多。”

    这次调查对1,700位首席营销官分别进行了一小时的面对面访谈。结果显示，数百位首席营销官都同意科特勒的观点。负责IBM调查的卡洛琳·海勒·贝尔德称：“我们最大的收获是了解到了准备不足的首席营销官们到底是如何看待他们所确定的主要营销因素，例如，从社交媒体到不断变化的人口结构。”

    那么，当今的首席营销官面临的两大难题是什么呢？IBM的调查发现，71%的受访者称，他们准备不足，无法应对现在的“数据大爆炸”；而68%的受访者称，应对社交媒体的变化异常艰难。

    对现任和前任首席营销官们的调查显示，解决问题的核心是信任问题：信任来源于其他高管、客户、首席营销官们本身以及新晋员工。

    几乎没有高管能自行解决这一难题，首席营销官也不例外。但在高管层中，或许并非只有首席营销官面临着这种状况；汹涌的数字革命浪潮使他们工作的复杂程度成倍增加。

    The Mad Men-esque days of dreaming up television spots and billboard campaigns over a three-martini lunch died amid the rise of Netscape and the digital revolution of the 1990s.

    But with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter quite established by now, "going digital" in the marketing world no longer means simply catching up to speed on newsfeeds and retweets.

    Chief marketing officers, or CMOs, at most major companies know that -- they said so in hundreds in a wide-reaching IBM survey released in mid-October. But they don't always know where to go from there.

    "Marketing was just easier in the past, there's no question," explains Philip Kotler, a prolific author and longtime marketing professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.。”

    Turns out hundreds of chief marketing officers share Kotler's view. "The biggest takeaway for me was how under-prepared CMOs are feeling with what they identified as top marketing factors, from social media to changing demographics," says Carolyn Heller Baird, who oversaw IBM's survey, which involved one-hour in-person interviews with 1,700 chief marketing officers.

    The two most troubling areas for CMOs? IBM's survey found that 71% said they are under-prepared to manage the current "data explosion," while 68% struggle with changes in social media.

    According to a group of current and former CMOs, addressing the issue all comes down to trust: from other executives, from consumers, and from CMOs themselves with their own recent hires.

    Few executives can do it all themselves, and marketers are no exception. But perhaps as much as any position in the C-suite, the job has gotten exponentially more complicated on account of digital innovation.