Think. Feel. Do.

Harvard Business Review featured Marketing in its July/August 2014 issue this past year. In that issue an article entitled The Ultimate Marketing Machine. The subtitle – Most marketing organizations are stuck in the last century. Here’s how the best meet the challenges of the digital age. The Authors are Marc de Swaan Arons, Frank van den Driest, and Keith Weed. Marc and Frank are founders of a global marketing strategy firm, EffectiveBrands. Keith Weed is chief marketing and communications officer at Unilever. Keith Weed is also the chairman of the Marketing 2020 Advisory Board.

The study reveals that Marketers must leverage customer insight, umbue their brands with a brand purpose, and deliver a rich customer experience. BUT most organizations haven’t been able to pull all those pieces together. The Utimate Marketing Machine article suggests that the highest achievers in business are those that manage a sort of marketing orchestrator model that is comprised of: THINK – where the focus is on data and analytics; FEEL – where the focus is on customer engagement and DO – where the focus is on content and production.

In Saint Louis, professor Perry Drake is preparing for his third annual digital marketing conference in April. The conference is a forum that addresses meeting challenges of the digital age. Speakers are invited to participate in a robust discussion with an audience of more than 350 who assemble on the campus of the University of Missouri, St. Louis (UMSL). Perry’s Digital Marketing Advisory Board, of which I am a member, helps to orchestrate this annual event. Indeed this group mirrors the Marketing 2020 Advisory Board with representation from business, marketing and agencies. At the heart of it all is an earnest effort to understand the role, structure, cababilities and leadership of the marketing function going forward.

We all recognize the disruption brought on by technologies. Now it appears the attention is finally beginning to look at the mindsets, competencies and behaviors we must cultivate to compete as marketers in our changing world. Marketing 2020 is a comprehensive global marketing leadership initiative. Led by Millward Brown Vermeer in partnership with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Spencer Stuart, and Adobe, Marketing2020 is focused on how to best align marketing strategy, structure, and capabilities for business growth.