Why marketing should report to the CEO.

• Author: Bator, Kenneth C.

Everyone thinks he is a marketing expert. R's a fact of life that marketing majors in college need to grasp from day one or live through a career of constant frustration. As I have told countless undergrads: "Nobody tells the controller how to adhere*, to GAAP. No one tells the chief information officer how to hook up the new server. But everyone, and I do mean everyone, will quickly give the chief marketing officer unsolicited advice about the new ad campaign."

In financial institutions, marketing usually takes a back seat to hard and deep disciplines such as finance or operations. It's not uncommon to find the head of marketing reporting to the chief financial officer or chief operating officer. Don't get me wrong, these individuals are smart executives who know their field, and probably even excelled at Marketing 101 over two decades ago, but they are not marketing experts. They look at marketing through a finance or operations eyeglasses. As they say, those that are good with a hammer tend to think everything is a nail. Al Ries and Jack Trout put it best in their book, "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing," when they said, "It looks easy, but marketing is not a game for amateurs."

Here's one recent conversation I had with a chief financial officer who also happens to be in charge of marketing:

"We don't do advertising here. The success of advertising is too difficult to gauge."

"Well all of your competitors advertise. How do you plan on creating awareness of your organization to potential customers?"

"The way we always have, by meeting them and shaking hands."

Having begun my career in sales, a part of me appreciates this mode of thinking. However, without a strong integrated marketing campaign to support the ,sales function, the efforts of your reps will be a much steeper climb. The fact is this CFO was looking at the marketing function through a finance eyepiece rather than as a strategic" section of the overall puzzle. The hard and fast world of finance will tell you that if a specific activity alone doesn't produce measurable results to the bottom line, cut it quickly.

One of the primary functions of the CEO, however, is to provide vision. In order to do that he or she will, or at least should...