Rethinking marketing excellence in Sri Lanka

Marketing leaders in all industries must drive a sense of urgency and inculcate excellence in the way marketing teams operate, learn, perform, and analyse 

How should marketers think about upskilling in achieving marketing excellence in the context of winning in Sri Lanka? This is an existential question that has drawn marketing teams back to the drawing board in Sri Lanka and globally. In the context of our market where the opportunity size for most categories could be limited, winning, and retaining marketspace is the fundamental requirement to continuous growth. In addition, it is important to consider growth in the adjacencies to increase market strength. Let’s take a look at the practical steps that marketers can take in this regard.

First the context

Customer understanding is critical to marketing success. But the way a customer reacts to changing circumstances has becomes more fluid than at any time in history. As business models develop, so do traditional marketing rules. The rise of disruptive technologies and fluid consumer behaviour has transformed business models. New innovations within marketing have led to new roles that include lead generators, monetisation managers, marketing designers, customer marketing managers, Interbrand marketers, and marketing analysts. Marketers are not only expected to adapt to changing trends, but they are also expected to lead them.

Marketing excellence: More than just a buzzword

Marketing excellence is gaining increasing international attention and is equally relevant to the Sri Lankan context. The American Marketing Association interprets marketing excellence in two different ways: from a management perspective and from an investor perspective. Managers translate it as a strategy that focuses on bringing natural growth by making three priorities: an eco-system for advertising, end user and marketing vigour. Investor translation is the creation of value based on the future cash flow and comparing the adopted marketing strategy i.e., ROI.

My interpretation of marketing excellence is anchored on the fundamentals of marketing; how excellent are you in understanding the customer pain points/key issues, how excellent are you in making strategic choices, how excellent are you in planning and delivering superior customer experience and value, how excellent are you in controlling, monitoring, and embedding the learnings as marketers. Therefore, it is a measure of output but also a measure of inputs i.e., how the results are achieved. 

What can marketers do?

Zoom in and Zoom out: Marketers must develop empathy for sales and establish a strong connect with the field operations as this is where the rubber hits the road. There is also the need to stay detached and not responding to noise from various corners that gets camouflaged as feedback or voice of the field. The narrative often is emotionally driven, based on past relationships or ‘how we have always done things here’. The lack of empirical data and other markers find it difficult to fight this narrative. This is where markets must strike the balance. As most management principles, the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle where a leader seamlessly changes gear from the playground to the strategy table.

Noise Vs feedback: Marketers get a lot of feedback from customers and stakeholders, and it can be tempting to act on everything. There can be a tendency in marketers to over empathise with the noise coming from a few stakeholders, playing to the gallery and the resultant delay in decision making. Agility of marketers in screening and understanding what real market trends vs. bubbles and the role is to differentiate these two and then only the strategic choice is possible; a market trend should be addressed with a deliberate strategy while a bubble requires an adoption of an emergent strategy or tactic. 

However, marketers should not be deceived by short-term bubbles yet awareness and agility in responding is a must. A recent discussion with another pronounced marketer in a different industry enlightened me that the marketer’s role is to sit in the upper deck of a double decker bus which provide the 360-degree view of far environment instead of being seated in the lower deck where the focus is narrowed on the near environment.   

Social and digital is not spectator sport: One of the first casualties when you use the term marketing excellence is the push towards digital and social platforms. This is where there is significant gap between the walk and the talk. Most marketers who propagate digital and have no first-hand experience of leveraging social platforms. It is important to remember that if you are not personally immersed in how social communities create brands, influencers advocate products and how peer to peer influence works in brand equity, it is difficult to build a visceral understanding. Social and digital is not a spectator sport.

In summary

Smaller markets like ours often have an all-encompassing eco-system. In this context, being reactive means losing the first mover advantage. If your marketing activity does not change faster than the market, you run the risk of losing competitive advantage. Marketing leaders in all industries must drive a sense of urgency and inculcate excellence in the way marketing teams operate, learn, perform, and analyse. The future winners will be those who embrace marketing excellence and have a nimble go to market approach that evolves with the customer and the market.

(The writer is the Head of Marketing and Commercial Trade Channels at GSK Pharmaceuticals Ltd. Sri Lanka.)