The more marketing changes, the more it stays the same
By Simon Van Wyk
The term “legend” doesn’t apply to many people in marketing in Australia, but one man who clearly qualifies is Bob Miller.
Long-time general manager of marketing for Toyota Australia, Bob is best known as the man behind the classic “Oh, What a feeling” campaign that placed Toyota at the top of the Australian car market.
Bob is one of Australia’s leading authorities on sales and marketing and numbers among his many awards the Australian Marketing Institute’s Sir Charles McGrath Award, Marketing Magazine’s Marketing Executive of the Decade and BRW’s Marketing Director of the Year.
Now working as a speaker and consultant on marketing and Internet business development, Bob has written a number of books and magazine columns on marketing, and is also an adjunct professor of business at Macquarie University.
I had the privilege of interviewing Bob for this month’s HotHouse podcast. When I asked him about the biggest change to advertising and marketing in Australia during the past 30 years, he didn’t nominate the rise of digital marketing, but the end of the fixed margins and commissions of the media accreditation process in the 1990s.
During his tenure as president of the Australian Association of National Advertisers, Bob Miller was instrumental in the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission calling an end to the media accreditation system. Started by News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch in the 1960s, the system allowed media owners to select the firms which could receive payments (some called them kickbacks) of up to 12% for placing advertising, while advertisers were excluded from such deals.
He made a few enemies in the process of pulling down the accreditation system. Several years down the track, he rates the outcome as “disappointing, because agencies haven’t taken advantage of the situation, while media houses have.”
Marketing as symphony
The job of marketers, Bob Miller says, is similar to conducting an orchestra. “It’s the conductor’s job to take all the individual musicians’ activities and turn them into Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. That’s the marketer’s job, though whether they get on with it is another thing.”
Asked whether the fundamentals of marketing have changed in the past two decades as a result of the digital revolution, Bob is emphatic. “No! Marketing hasn’t changed since the markets of ancient Assyria. ‘Buy my oranges, they will last longer, taste better, etc.’ The same applies today.
“Marketing may be more complicated, but it essentially has not changed. Markets are conversations. The ideas are the same.”
Social media, he says, like everything in its early phase, “is over-hyped – but it is meaningful. It’s evolving.”
At the end of the day, according to Bob Miller, whether you’re using digital or traditional marketing, “it’s about generating predictable future cashflow for the business and shareholders. The job of marketers is to convince the board to give you money so you can generate that cashflow.
Digital technology, he says, “complicates the life of marketing directors,” particularly because most CEOs and CMOs are still firmly entrenched in TV, newspapers and direct mail, three media they grew up with and understand.
His advice to marketing agencies of the future is to address the cashflow issue by embracing statistics. “You need to have numeric insight, to sell your ideas to shareholders and stock market analysts.
“Agencies who service business accounts need to have conversations with econometricians – or hire some young ones with this background. You need to demonstrate to a company board that here’s a new way of thinking about the future, the future of your cash flow. That’s why we do advertising.”
For companies to be successful in the future, Bob reckons, “The finance department should be integrated into marketing department. I know the CFOs think it should be the other way around, but they need to work more closely together understand that it’s a marriage of interests – and the stakes are high.”
Tags: bob miller, Marketing, Toyota
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