Marketing leaders favour digital over more traditional skills
As the debate over the changing craft of marketing becomes a preoccupation for the industry, an in-depth survey has revealed marketing leaders are favouring digital and analytics capabilities over more traditional skills.
The study, entitled Whole Brain Marketing: Data, Creativity and the Leadership Challenge, found that 75% of respondents value analytical expertise above creative flair.the research by Spencer Stuart questioned 200 senior marketers around the world.
“The marketer of the future will need different skills and knowledge,” Bas Verheijen, chief marketing officer at online supermarket Picnic, explained. “Affinity with data and analysis is now an unconditional requirement.”
Marco Sansavini, chief marketing officer at Iberia, agreed with this and added: “Analytical capabilities and big data skills are becoming increasingly important. Personalisation is among the most relevant areas of value creation for the future.”
The respondents are escalating their digital marketing to become relevant and accessible to their customers and to better understand them.
Almost 60% said that their organisation’s digital capabilities were either beginning to produce results or were already at high levels of sophistication. However, data-driven marketing has also required changes in how these marketers think and how their teams work together.
Kerris Bright, chief marketing officer at Virgin Media, said: “The opportunity to turn data into insight requires marketers to think in a much more analytical way.”
A popular notion divides people into left-brain thinkers, with a propensity for