Reputation and Innovation — Two Key Words for Marketing Moving Forward

Jeffrey R. Immelt, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GE, was honored by the Ad Council in New York on November 20th. In a spontaneous 7-minute speech acknowledging his award, he captured both the essence of these times and the spirit of marketing at its best. The full address appears in our Frontlines section; however, two of Mr. Immelt’s words should regularly be on our minds right now: reputation and innovation.

According to Jeffrey Immelt, we should march into the offices of our CMOs and CEOs today and explain that marketing budgets cannot be cut. Why? Two words ring loud and clear: “reputation and innovation.”
“We are at war to protect our own reputations in the corporate world. The people in society feel like we’ve let them down. A blogger tomorrow morning can write whatever they want without any guidance at all, and it can hurt our stock price. If you are not willing to fight for your own reputation, why should anyone work for you, why should anyone buy from you, why should anyone invest in you?”

The innovators and the creative types, the people that push the boundaries —YOU [the marketers] need to be the people to lead us out of this. Right now, the cynics are winning. The pessimists are winning. … But this is a time to deliver hope back in our organizations, to protect our reputations, but more importantly, to redouble our efforts to be innovators and technologists and together solve some of the world’s toughest problems.”

Jeffrey Immelt’s words also echo those of Tim Love, Omnicom’s Vice Chairman who contributed his Advertising Manifesto to The Internationalist’s last issue. Love underscored how innovation can overcome fear.

Interestingly, while I was in Japan in November at the first Asia-Pacific Digital Publishing conference by FIPP and the Japan Magazine Association, I heard another sensible reminder. Marcel Fenex, PriceWaterhouseCooper’s Global Managing Partner for the Entertainment & Media Practice, based in Hong Kong, discussed the media outlook in our digital age.

Fenex mentioned that “we often overestimate change in the short run, and underestimate it the long run.” He specifically was discussing metrics in regard to transformations in media and demographics. Nonetheless, I think his statement can be applied to more balanced view of these times. Perhaps we are simply moving toward an Age of Responsibility … a concept that marketing has pioneered for some time now.

Deborah Malone, publisher