by Thomas Barta | Jan 24, 2017 | Marketing Leadership
Great marketing communication is jargon-free so the customer message makes it through loud and clear. So why do so many marketers believe using marketing jargon inside their company is okay? It’s not. It’s a career killer (from my Marketing...
by Thomas Barta | Dec 30, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
As a customer-focused leader, you are in the inspiration business. The biggest part of your role is to mobilize people in your company to make a great customer experience happen. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as just issuing orders to those around you. Your best...
by Thomas Barta | Nov 25, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
Shaping a company’s customer experience (CX) is, perhaps, the biggest leadership challenge of a business. Yet the leaders in charge of this crucial endeavour rarely receive targeted leadership training. It’s time to change this (from my cmo.com column). Recently I...
by Thomas Barta | Nov 6, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
In a marketing team, trust is the foundation for everything. No matter how good your team’s marketing skills are, they won’t make a dent in the market unless people give their best and take some risks. The condition required? Trust! Trust doesn’t happen automatically....
by Thomas Barta | Oct 29, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
You are a finance leader. You love numbers. You know what’s going on inside the company’s P&L. In a complex world, your CEO relies on you. Hand over heart: What do you think of marketers? Many CFOs think that marketers talk bollocks, don’t understand the company,...
by Thomas Barta | Oct 29, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
Marketing leaders must constantly show that marketing delivers financial returns. Why? If the organization knows your work delivers a return, the decision makers will give you the resources and support you need for your important marketing projects. But proving...
by Thomas Barta | Oct 7, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
“You’ll Never Walk Alone,” the show tune from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel, couldn’t be truer for marketing leaders. Think about it: you want to change the customer experience that large numbers of people in your company create each day — most of...
by Thomas Barta | Sep 3, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
Even decades after leadership thinker Peter Drucker said his famous sentence “the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation” there’s still a—surprisingly lively—debate as to whether marketing’s (and...
by Thomas Barta | Sep 2, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
As a marketing leader, customer knowledge is key for your business success—but it won’t get you promoted. In my research, what mattered more for marketer’s career success, were product and market knowledge. A good way to gain these insights is to step out...
by Thomas Barta | Sep 1, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
Many non-marketing leaders don’t fully understand why marketing is essential for the company. That’s why making the case for marketing to them may be more important than you think (from my cmo.com column). At times, even the most high-profile CMOs had to make the...
by Thomas Barta | Aug 13, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
Diversity was back in the news when agency Saatchi & Saatchi recently sacked chairman Kevin Roberts for saying (among other things) that the gender diversity debate in advertising is over. His widely reported remarks have turned into a PR disaster...
by Thomas Barta | Jul 14, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
Customer leaders have to make things happen for customers. One way of doing that is by building consensus with colleagues. But, sometimes, leader’s life is about ensuring a decision, which has been taken, gets executed (from my cmo.com column). Not long ago I...
by Thomas Barta | Jun 23, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
Until recently, top CMOs were a rare sight at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. That’s changing. This year’s festival brought the “who’s who” of marketing leadership to Cannes in a quest to celebrate creative excellence. I had the opportunity to...
by Thomas Barta | May 23, 2016 | Marketing Leadership
Delighting customers is high on every CMO’s agenda. This often means building capabilities to serve customers faster, better, or in a more personalised manner. Technology isn’t the hardest part, however; what’s really tough is driving changes within a company. It’s...
by Thomas Barta | Dec 4, 2015 | Marketing Leadership
People will forget the price, but they’ll never forget the quality, famous designer Jil Sander was once quoted. For marketers, her point couldn’t be more true (from my cmo.com column). Your ideal agency partners may be a six-hour flight away, and expensive. But...
by Thomas Barta | Sep 30, 2015 | Marketing Leadership
Marketing is only one piece of the customer experience puzzle. To create a truly remarkable experience, other departments must also be heavily involved. The challenge is that colleagues in these other departments don’t perhaps report directly to you. You must find...
by Thomas Barta | Sep 4, 2015 | Marketing Leadership
Daniel* is a marketer–and Daniel has a problem: he isn’t getting his boss’s attention. A regional marketing head of a large consumer electronics company, he often finds himself last on his boss’s agenda. Daniel isn’t alone. Millions of marketers struggle to get...
by Thomas Barta | Aug 7, 2015 | Marketing Leadership
Let’s face it: you’re not in charge of it all. Almost nobody is really in charge of it all. Your boss can disagree with you. Your colleagues can push their own agendas. Even your team members can push their will over yours. We are in the 21st century. The old...
by Thomas Barta | Jul 20, 2015 | Marketing Leadership
Did you ever wonder how to start a movement within your company? This video has some powerful insights for you! It takes three to fill the dance floor. At the 2009 Sasquatch outdoor music festival, one guy got up and started to dance. Hundreds of spectators wondered,...
by Thomas Barta | Jul 3, 2015 | Marketing Leadership
Normally, I write about how to succeed as a customer leader. But often, after a talk or a workshop, someone comes to me and says: “Come on, you must admit that leading marketing is hard” (from my cmo.com column). Okay, let’s–for once–do some moaning....
