Marketing: Skills crisis or identity crisis?

Earlier this month, I was invited to join, Gemma Butler, Marketing Director at The Chartered Institute of Marketing at The Debating Group in the House of Commons to oppose the motion: ‘The marketing sector is heading towards a skills crisis’.

Richard Kenyon, Director of Marketing and Communications at Everton FC together with Russell Parsons, Editor of Marketing Week, had proposed the motion – and so it was, that Gemma and I set out to build a compelling position, against.

I had never attended a formal debate before in the HoC – and initially, considering the stance, I was struggling to find an angle that didn’t totally agree with our opposition.

However, the critical aspect of ‘debate’ is indeed to get down to the raw facts. And having researched headlines in Marketing Week, such as: ‘Marketing’s Looming Crisis’, ‘It’s Time to Market Marketing’ and ‘Filling the Data Skills Gap', and consuming the insights, we felt we had a pretty good grasp of the potential angle our opposition would be taking.

And indeed, as we anticipated, we heard from Richard and Russell about a lack of skills, a lack of trained candidates and a lack of pipeline coming through the ranks from schools and universities, as well as the timeless conversation relating to the poor level of ‘marketing’ representation in the boardroom.

However, having drilled down into the facts, Gemma and I agreed upon and took the stance that, it’s not so much about a skills crisis, but more of an identity crisis. A challenge, which for the marketing profession, is far from new.

There was indeed compelling research and evidence presented about the lack of awareness of ‘marketing’ being discussed in schools, particularly at Year 9 (the year when most students are considering which GCSEs to take). And yes, whilst research undertaken by Marketing Week had revealed that just 3% of potential students consider ‘Marketing’ as an attractive degree, compared to 16% medicine. When we looked at the study, it was evident that ‘Business’ scored considerably higher with 11%.

Why was this important…? Having personally studied both business and marketing at both degree and higher degree levels – it’s clear that both business and marketing qualifications overlap, considerably.

When it comes to the pipeline – i.e. encouraging potential into the marketing profession, given how inextricably linked marketing is to business and business is to marketing, (let’s face it, there’s not a degree you can do in business that doesn’t include heavy components of marketing and vice versa) – [and given the nods from the audience, there was clearly significant concensus], we determined that the results from the Marketing Week study weren't necessarily representative of the truer story.

Whilst not a wholly scientific study, Gemma embarked on a quick search on LinkedIn of over 100 people with ‘Marketing’ in their title and then looked at what they studied. We concluded, that over half had business or business and marketing degrees. Aligning with our view about the two being inextricably linked. And confirming that many that directly study marketing, go on into marketing – and do have formal ‘marketing’ qualifications.

When considering the pipeline and looking at graduates, it's far from bleak for marketing. Unemployment among recent graduates is at its lowest level in 39 years, with skills shortages / gaps across many industries boosting job prospects.

The 2018 Luminate Report, ‘What Do Graduates Do’ – gives detailed insights into the degrees undertaken by graduates, and interestingly, what else they go onto study – and the roles they go on to occupy.

Some of the highlights from that report were most interesting:

• For those studying Accountancy and Finance degrees - 73% went on to study a masters, including, Masters in Marketing. 
• Those that study business studies and management - 21% go on to work in Marketing (second highest sector after business – 26%).
• Many doing hospitality studies go on to study an MSC in Marketing – and 29.7% go on to work in marketing.
• Media studies - 17% go into marketing.
• English grads - other courses they studied included MA in marketing and comms with 16.4% going into marketing.
• Languages – again, many go in to further studies, including MSC in Strategic Marketing - and Marketing is highest percentage type of work they move into, at 18.9%.
• PR - closely attributed within Marketing throughout the report.
• Marketing – many go on to do a Masters in Business – as well as marketing. And 53% go into marketing roles and 12% into business roles – the second highest.

The report findings highlighted to us, that measuring the skills crisis of ‘marketing’ based on the findings of those that state whether they consider marketing an attractive subject to study, is significantly misleading. 

When the debate was opened up to the floor, it was interesting to hear from a few representatives, one of which a university lecturer, who validated our point, that a number of the degree courses, including those related to business, but other courses too, included marketing modules – as marketing is so entwined and enmeshed with how business functions and operates.

And indeed, another speaker mentioned that he had actually studied accountancy and finance, which incorporated aspects of marketing – and decided that marketing was the profession he wanted to move into.

Both Gemma and I accepted that the marketing profession does indeed have challenges when it comes to ‘skills gaps and training’ – however, this is a challenge that is no means unique to Marketing – and can be witnessed across many industries. There are well publicised skills gaps and lack of training opportunities cited in many other sectors too, such as accountancy and HR to name just a couple.

Marketing Continues to Adapt and Extend

With the onset of technological development, marketing has adapted and along the way adopted many ‘brand extensions’, some of which, within some organisations, may sit within ‘marketing’ – or have become sizeable stand alone departments.

And then we have a plethora of ever-expanding job titles; digital marketing analyst, paid search specialist, digital advertising, conversion optimisation specialist, content marketer, head of content, social media marketer, social media manager, social monitoring executive, customer experience manager, customer experience innovator – to name but a few! Again, to some, these roles may be deemed as marketing and to others, not so. It's all contextual.

For organisations looking to recruit in the marketing arena, it’s wise to focus on being ‘contextual’ and to fully understand the skills required for the role.

The context of requirement changes dependent on the strategic endeavour of the organisation and indeed the structure. For example, an organisation that manufacturers cruise liners and has a consideration pipeline of several years which relies heavily on specialist field sales teams and face to face relationship marketing – isn’t necessarily going to be as dependent on paid search as say, a high street bank.

And finally, what about Marketing not being represented in the boardroom?

To tackle this claim, we set out researching what was really going on from a ‘marketing representation’ in the boardroom perspective. 

An article from Marketing Week identified that 18% of CEOs have a marketing background. Whilst another piece of research from Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, presented a study which identified that more than 25% of CEOs had a marketing background. And of course, what we didn’t do at the time, was to research the backgrounds of all typical c-suite executives, (CIOs, COOs, CFOs - and the more obvious CMOs). However, if having done an MBA or other ‘business’ qualification throughout their career, they would undoubtedly have embarked on some form of formal ‘marketing’ study.

More high profile CEO’s such as Tesco’s Dave Lewis, Direct Line’s Paul Geddes and BT’s Gavin Patterson all come from marketing backgrounds.

The marketing representation at the ‘top’ situation isn’t as bleak as cited by our opposition. And of course, as the trend for continued adaption of new technologies and digital transformation increases, and importance of customer centricity in driving growth intensifies, then the 'early adopter' mentality and the broad functional and strategic skills of senior marketing executives becomes even more valuable.

Marketing Hasn’t Marketed Itself Very Well

The challenge, we concluded, which both Richard and Russell concurred with, is that marketing has not been so great at marketing itself.

When we talk of ‘marketing not marketing itself very well’, in the necessity to adapt and evolve, marketing now means very different things to different organisations (and as a practising marketer for the past 25 years, in fairness, this is not a new challenge).

For some, marketing is about advertising and promotions. For others, it’s about product development and innovation, for others, customer experience management, customer acquisition and retention. And for some, marketing is everything – it’s all of those aspects mentioned - and more.

The definition of marketing clearly isn’t clear cut and how marketing is portrayed in organisations often isn’t clear cut.

But rather than focus on semantics, the focus should be about any type of activity, whether deemed or titled as falling into the remit of ‘marketing’ or not, being strategically aligned with overall organisational objectives. Ensuring everyone is focused on outcomes that matter.

The question… ‘What is marketing?’ – is a big one. I’m personally aligned with Seth Godin, in tackling it from the other angle, and asking, ‘What isn’t marketing?’.

But back to the debate... . So what was the majority vote? For or against the motion?

On this occasion, Gemma and I won the hearts and minds of our audience. The 'identity crisis' - certainly resonated with fellow marketers and they voted against the motion 'The marketing sector is heading towards a skills crisis'.

But as four debating marketers, we were unanimous that marketing has a bit of the 'cobbler's shoes' syndrome, and really does need to do a better job of marketing itself.

Which I'm hopeful is already happening. I am, after all, by nature, a radical optimist - and indeed proud to label myself a 'marketer'.

Michelle Carvill – Founder, Digital Marketing and Social Media Agency, Carvill Creative. Digital Educator. Strategic Marketer. Three times published author. Latest book ‘Get Social - Social Media Strategy and Tactics for Leaders, published by Kogan Page, May 2018. Shortlisted for The Business Book Awards 2019. Get in touch via www.michellecarvill.com