Marketing is about more than money…

While Keith Weed’s timely call to promote the role of marketing in the UK should be applauded (MW June 17), he ignores a fundamental quirk about the way marketers view their own profession.

Marketing is one of only a handful of industries where exponents of its art will switch jobs for less money. In my experience as a specialist recruiter for marketers, bigger brands, more autonomy, prospects and job satisfaction are usually higher on the agenda for candidates than salary.

In contrast, accountants, lawyers and bankers would never dream of jumping ship to another company unless it was for more money.

Ultimately, this is a key reason why the salaries of marketers and other creatives often lag behind those of other professions and this should certainly be addressed in the heralded “Manifesto for Marketing” in November.

What, I suspect, the Research International Survey, which has irked the profession, really meant by “marketers are held in lower esteem than accountants, bankers and lawyers” was “marketers earn less money than accountants, bankers and lawyers”.

More affinity between the marketing and finance functions in organisations is always worth striving for, but a genuine cultural change within the people in the marketing industry could help drive up salaries and have more of an impact on the perception of marketing than a noisy internal debate about the issues. But does the marketing industry really want that?

Jonny Cainer

Managing director

Marketing Professionals UK

Manchester