Interim Marketing Managers Mind the Gap

While interim marketing managers always claim that ‘delighting’ customers is their ultimate aim, this being the best way to deliver profitable growth, two new pieces of research suggest that most marketing activity is destined to disappoint.

The Promise Index, from brand agency Promise, ranks brands according to the difference between the image they create through advertising and other brand-building activities, and the experience customers have of them. Brands with positive promise gaps exceed customers’ expectations, while those with negative gaps let them down.

The average growth rate for brands with negative gaps in 2006-2007 was 2.8%, while the average growth rate for brands with positive gaps was 10.5%. But just 15% of brands surveyed have 'statistically significant' positive promise gaps. The message for the other 85% seems clear.

Given that under-promising and over-delivering is the best way to delight customers, they should redirect their marketing spend from expensive high-profile brand-building activities into improving the customer experience through innovation and better service.

The Promise Index findings are borne out by the European Advocacy Study from PR agency Weber Shandwick. The study found that surprising and delighting customers is the chief factor in creating brand advocacy which, in turn, is five times more effective than advertising in prompting purchase.

According to Weber Shandwick, one-third of brand users are acquired through advocacy, though only half of these are ‘active’ advocates. So in addition to the promise gap, it seems likely that many brands are suffering from an advocacy gap. So a secondary challenge for interim marketing managers wanting to increase the profitability of their brand is to leverage their unique brand-building skills to stimulate greater advocacy for their products and services. It seems it is time for marketers to reassess their traditional priorities and place substance before style.

Previously published in The Business Review, Impact Executives and http://www.onrec.com/newsstories/22016.asp.