The Most Dangerous Job In Corporate America

If you’re reading this right now and you play any role in marketing or media at your company, your job is in jeopardy. You’ve got three years left in your position – if you’re lucky. But don’t panic – read on to learn why your job is in danger, how you’ll be scapegoated, and most importantly, what you can do to save yourself from getting axed.

Marketing as a profession isn’t going anywhere – if anything, it’s anticipated to grow approximately 10% over the next decade. So, what gives? It’s not that the field is in jeopardy, but rather your particular position. Why? Because corporate marketers are expected to keep doing it the way their company has always done it. But the world is changing, and if the marketing profession doesn’t change alongside it when sales numbers fall short, and market share decreases – guess who is going to be blamed? That’s right: marketers.

Before you call me an alarmist, consider this: as of 2016, the average tenure for a CMO for the top 100 U.S. ad spenders fell to a mere 42-months, according to the Wall Street Journal. And, while startling, the figure makes sense: if your company isn’t achieving its desired results, be it market share, sales quota, or what have you, the CEO will change the strategy – and the team. And who is likely the first to go – the CMO, because their vision, and strategy, led the company awry and caused the sales team to underachieve… You get the idea. To sum it up: goodbye, job.

Now, I want to be clear. The blame does not fall squarely on the marketer. Instead, the competitive landscape has changed. Corporate behemoths like Procter & Gamble or Unilever are losing both market share and margin. These once untouchable brands have grown accustomed to being at the top, and because of this, have lost touch with the needs and wants of their customers. Industry disruption is happening, and has been happening, all around them – they didn’t expect it to come knocking at their door. And beat their market share and prices down with it.

One dominant force at play is the rise of direct to consumer (DTC) brands. Young companies that bypass the brick and mortar store and its markups, slotting fees and more, and sell – you guessed it – directly to consumers. Take P&G’s Gillette for example. Between 2015 and 2016, Gillette lost 11% of its market share to startups like Harry’s and Dollar Shave club, subscription model razor companies with fun marketing campaigns (like this one or this one), a no BS air about them, and significantly cheaper products.

The rise of these companies has caused outright panic in the industry. P&G’s response was to drop Gillette’s prices by an average of 12%, pivoting away from putting nearly all their ad spend behind their most expensive razors, and even launching Gillette on Demand: a home delivery service which allows customers to send a text to get refill blades delivered to their door. How did Unilever respond? By paying a cool $1 billion to acquire Dollar Shave Club, thereby earning them a full 16% of the U.S. razor market and a company that is a certifiable expert in DTC marketing.

And that, my friends, is the real story. The big brands are finally beginning to recognize that while they are great at traditional marketing like big TV ads, they’re missing a massive piece of the market because they don’t understand how to market to millennials. Part of the problem is that so much of their advertising is on television and millennials just aren’t watching TV (61% of millennials primarily stream their content). Not to mention, millennials aren’t willing to pay a premium for (supposed) brand prestige. They’re looking for convenience, a deal, and a damn good story.

As a marketer, it’s your job to create that compelling story – and surely you have many ideas brewing that would reach this coveted millennial demographic. But your hands are tied by your company that is stuck in the old way of thinking – that television or programmatic ads are the only way to go. The problem is, your company (and the rest of corporate America, with very few exceptions) is using unreliable tools. While marketers are supposed to be an analytics authority, continually paying attention to what’s working and what’s not, it’s vital to use the right metrics and tools to measure them. Otherwise, you’re falling for confirmation bias – merely using tools that justify what you already believe.

Here’s the problem: the numbers indicate that millennials continue to watch their favorite television programs – as many as 74% call their TV time to be their “me time” according to a VAB study. Therefore, marketers use that high viewership as confirmation to continue to put their ad spend into commercials during those shows. The problem with this interpretation is multifaceted but straightforward.

First, the fact that millennials watch their favorite programs does not inherently mean that they are watching them on traditional television. There are dozens of ways to stream programs in real time that don’t involve traditional cable – think YouTube TV, Sling TV, and more. That means the ads that are costing the big corporations big bucks aren't even shown on viewer's screens. Nearly half of American adults aged 22 – 45 watch zero content on traditional TV, according to Omnicom agency Hearts & Science. 

Second, even if millennials do watch their programs on traditional TV, the assumption that they’re also watching the commercials aired during the show is flawed. Except for the Super Bowl, hardly anyone watches commercials at all. Stats indicate that as many as 86% of viewers fast-forward through commercials. Suppose they don’t fast-forward, it’s far from safe to assume they’re watching. It’s much more likely that they’re deep into the Instagram scroll or watching a YouTube video than paying attention to the commercial you spent tens of thousands of dollars to air.

How is it possible that 86% of consumers fast-forward through commercials, nearly half of American adults don’t watch traditional television, and yet marketers continue to spend a third of their advertising dollars – amounting to over $70 billion – on television ads? According to AdAge, the majority of advertisers continue to believe that TV is more useful for building brand awareness than online marketing. This belief demonstrates confirmation bias – because marketers are comfortable with television and it has worked so well in the past, they continue to only read the numbers in a favorable light instead of realizing that consumers and the media landscape have changed. It’s precisely this bad interpretation of data that is sealing marketers’ fate as the first to get the ax.

If as a marketer you’re as worried as I think you should be, don’t panic quite yet. With a simple change in approach, you can not only save your job and prospects in the industry, but also help your current brand gain market share in the present. But first, let’s brush up on some marketing fundamentals. Marketing strategy is what you offer, who you offer it to, and how you offer it. It means paying attention to what your customers want, and how they want it communicated to them. And I know that you know that. But keep that front and center in your mind as I help you help save your job.

You must embrace influencer marketing. Why? To begin with, influencer marketing content delivers 11x higher ROI than traditional forms of digital marketing according to Nielsen. And while I could stop there because that stat alone should be evidence enough to convert you to invest in the influencer revolution, I’ll go on. Remember our fundamental refresher? Marketing strategy means paying attention to how your customers want your messaging delivered to them. Consider that 57% of all internet users over 16 years old report buying products recommended by an influencer and that number rises to 69% for millennials.

Not only are consumers turning away from TV commercials, banners, and other digital ads, but also they’re making purchases through branded influencer content amounting to more than a 10x return. It’s important that you invest in influencer marketing content, and not halfheartedly. You must value it more highly than other ads – because that’s exactly what your buyers are doing. Don’t believe me? The numbers speak for themselves. According to a study by McKinsey, “marketing-inspired word-of-mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising, and these customers have a 37% higher retention rate.” If that stat doesn’t move you – consider this. According to AdWeek, influencer marketing yields $6.50 for each dollar spent. Now that’s some serious ROI.

So, what should you do to show you’re serious about influencer marketing? Invest the majority of your advertising budget – I recommend 70% – into influencer marketing. More specifically, you need to invest in product placement and branded content within influencers’ YouTube videos or Instagram posts. Wondering where to start? One platform has consistently outperformed the others, and that’s YouTube.

While Instagram and YouTube both perform well in building awareness, if you’re looking for education and conversion, the answer is YouTube: “YouTube is particularly special because it works well at every part of the sales funnel – offering both visual branding opportunity and attributable traffic to your site” (Big Commerce). By partnering with the right influencers, and letting them do what they do best – engage authentically with their audience – you’ll leverage their expertise in direct to consumer marketing, create impressions, and ultimately watch your sales increase.

We all know that the media landscape has changed, and our lives as a result. These days, smart phones rule our lives, and influencers are the kings and queens of the smart phone. A third of the population admits they interact more with their phone than with another human – and that (debatably sad) stat rises to 39% for millennials. So, if our eyes are already trained on our phones, and consumed with the lives and opinions of internet influencers, it only makes sense to spend advertising dollars there as well.

The writing is on the wall, and it has been for years. Consumers are not engaging TV the way they have for generations, and as the TV goes, so too must the advertising norms of the past. Marketers must boldly step into this new influencer driven world. If not? Three years from now, as you try to advance your marketing career, you will inevitably be asked what you did to help your brand navigate the influencer world. If you answer that you doubled down on TV and programmatic ads – you’re going to be left behind. And while it may be uncomfortable to step out of the norm – to back away from the TV advertisements – and embrace this influencer revolution, ultimately your brand, boss, and career will thank you for it.