Watch out for the quiet ones

Alan Mitchell’s piece “Marketers seek oasis from blur” (MW September 27) on the future of marketing was a refreshingly atypical perspective on the concepts of brand strategy.

The suggestion that marketers actually ask themselves “what is ourmarket” is a scarier proposition than asking ad agencies to set their own budgets. (It is also undoubtedly easier to do one than the other.)

However, it’s a fascinating concept that moves Tom Peter’s chaos theory on a stage or ten. The pre-conceived notion that brands assume similar brands are their competitors is not one of which the fmcg industry is the only guilty party. Agencies do it too. And funnily enough, despite the move towards more diverse service offerings by agencies and the bandwagoning of integration, I’m sure there are few agencies that feel threatened by DM, SP or even God forbid, PR competition.

However, past history shows that budgets can move, and just as Grove’s book Only the Paranoid Survive suggests agencies, like all companies, should be looking left of field for those quiet competitors.

Let’s face it, if athletes can become TV presenters, supermodels become writers and Aussie soap stars become singers, then I don’t doubt that marketers can turn their hand to other disciplines.

Sheena Horgan

Partner

Eulogy

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