Marketers offered chartered status
Leading marketing professionals will soon be able to apply for chartered status, enabling individuals to be called a “chartered marketer”.
The right has been granted by the Privy Council following an application from the Chartered Institute of Marketing. It is the first time a profession has been allowed to use the prefix “chartered” since engineers were awarded this status in 1967.
A ceremony to inaugurate the first 700 chartered marketers will take place in October at the Royal Festival Hall. Baroness Detta O’Cathain, non-executive director of Tesco and British Airways, will preside at the ceremony.
She says: “Chartered marketer status will help raise the profile and credibility of marketing professionals throughout the world. If it leads to more marketers in the boardroom of British companies, the economy as a whole will undoubtedly benefit.”
CIM members and fellows can become chartered marketers after they have completed the CIM’s continuing professional development programme (CPD) for two consecutive years. Thereafter chartered marketers have to complete 35 hours a year of extra marketing activity, such as attending conferences and studying marketing theory.
The first raft of chartered marketers will include O’Cathain, CIM chairman David Chapman and Miar Barnes, chairman of Dollond & Aitchison.
Ray Perry, CIM marketing director, says: “It’s about time marketing was recognised. We have all felt we are a profession, but this is a seal of approval. It’s a coming of age for marketing – the biggest milestone this century.”