How to save the modern marketing manager

Decades ago, marketing managers were considered stewards of the brand. They were the head of the table, the figure in the room that creatives would have to convince, the executive that CFOs would have to wrangle and the mind who ultimately led the brand into the great unknown. 

It’s not that they aren’t these things anymore – it's that the world has forced them to be many other things as well.

Gone are the days of smoky rooms with feet on tables, arguing the merits of a creative idea with Jon Hamm types halfway through their sixth cigarette of the day. Instead, modern marketing managers spend most of their time trying to grow extra limbs, as the demand of lead generation, design workflows, print deadlines, emerging social avenues, content production and a host of other needs pull them in every direction. It’s a world the characters of Mad Men would hardly recognise, or be able to survive in. 

Look at a job listing for a marketing manager today and you’ll find a thinly veiled application for an event planner, amateur designer and content creator as well. In theory, it makes absolute sense for a brand. Keep costs in-house instead of hiring contractors and fold in extra responsibilities to the manager role over time until you have a marketing octopus working in the engine room of your brand. It's practical, sure. But does it ultimately drive your brand or business forward, like the role was originally intended for? In the midst of trying to do everything, marketing managers have lost sight of what it means to have vision for their role and the stats back it up.

• Productivity drops by 40% as a result of multi-tasking [1]
• Employees lose as much as 28% of their day switching between tasks [2]
• Marketing managers may lose up to 80% of productive time per day [3]

Owners and executives might think they are getting a Swiss Army Knife for their marketing team – but wouldn’t you rather a hammer?

Taking some of those responsibilities away from an already stressed role and instead placing them in the hands of ready professionals (and hammers in their own right) is the only way we can save the marketing manager from the trappings of their role. 

Take content production for example. Social media and digital avenues are some of the hungriest mouths begging to be fed and it’s up to the marketing manager to feed them. Should the burden of content creation sit with the marketer that spends their day in meetings, spreadsheets and already demanding responsibilities?

Or maybe the brand would be better off with a devoted, bolt-on solution for today's kind of production? After all, a nail needs a hammer - not a Swiss Army Knife.

1. American Psychological Association (APA)

2. McKinsey & Company

3. Basex research