Coup d’etat in the Corporation
By Dawn Morais Webster

It has gone almost unnoticed, but under cover of the recession, in too many corporations, chief financial officers have seized the power that used to belong to marketing. Marketing budgets have been slashed or frozen, often, not because the Chief Marketing Officer decided such action was necessary but because a directive came down from Finance to freeze all spending.

There is great irony in all this because these spending freezes are well-intentioned. They are meant to save the bottom line. But cutting expenses is hardly growth. And no one has ever saved their way to growth. Growth comes with investment and marketing dollars are investments that are as crucial to corporate growth as proper nutrition is to our health.

But making those investments in difficult times means having strong nerves and the will to take charge the same way we know each of us has to take charge of our individual health. Others can give us prescriptions of one kind or another that promise good physical well-being. But it still remains up to the individual to decide to make the commitment and stay the course even when the goals seem daunting. Chief marketing officers in both the for-profit and nonprofit world need to reclaim the power they ceded perhaps too readily because the times looked tough and they wanted to be good team players.  Yes, we are in a recession, but because we are in a recession, marketing doesn’t stop: progressive companies understand that is precisely when it should go into over-drive.

It is worth asking yourself though, if you are being well-served and whether your marketing dollars are being spent in an ad-centric 1980s way or if your agency is giving you the support you need to venture into social media and take advantage of new free and low cost tools available online to market more effectively? Are you measuring and fine-tuning your message as you track how your clients and prospects behave? Now you can-- and you should. It’s time to reclaim the power that is yours and exercise it in new and more invigorating ways. Remember, an organization that stops marketing pretty soon stops breathing. Your marketing efforts created an organization with the balance sheet that your colleagues in finance could then pore over with a fine toothcomb, shaving here and cutting there. Don’t let them pass that off for growth. It’s time to stage a coup d’etat of your own and reclaim your power. It’s not hard. Do it in small steps or do it more dramatically.  But however you do it, refuse, just refuse to submit to the panicked retreat
from marketing activities that has hampered recovery for so many.