I've had a fantastic career so far, working on incredible brands for incredible marketing leaders. I’ve led brilliant campaigns, been a part of new product launches, set brand identities, built brand propositions, trained marketing teams and improved operations. It’s been hugely rewarding, satisfying and immensely fun!

It’s also been very frustrating. 

So much of a marketer’s time is spent keeping stakeholders happy and justifying our existence rather than doing the job we’re actually employed to do. Marketing has become synonymous with being a service and cost. It’s often the first to have budget and headcount cut. 

Which is crazy because executed correctly marketing and brand management are an absolute force to be reckoned with. It's all about carving out a distinctive position in a category to deliver value to customers, applying that to consistently to all 4Ps, driving customer satisfaction and, crucially, profit! It's much more effective than the hard sell, for both the short and long term.

Yes, some Marketing departments might own just the promotion element of the 4Ps in some businesses. But, if alongside that they can also assert themselves as the voice of the customer, and the owner of the brand, they become well positioned to inspire and influence the rest. To start adding real, commercial value.

This is what I've excelled at in my most recent roles, where I've managed to unite businesses around a common position and build distinctive identities. In doing so all efforts within a business have been amplified. 

This is what I want to do in all future projects. To support marketers in building distinctive, value-led brands. To alleviate the pressure, provide focus and start influencing the right direction of travel to reach profitable growth. To be that extra pair of hands that helps get back to the basics of marketing.