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Careers: Not so promiscuous, after all - The 18-month marketer is a lie
(Marketing Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Exclusive research for Marketing reveals marketing directors move every 4.2 years. It's better for business, but is it career-enhancing? Claire Murphy finds out.
Marketers spin through jobs at a rate surpassed only by the speed at which they snatch up the phone to take calls from headhunters. With their well-known average 18-month stint in jobs, the common complaint is that they don't stick around long enough to see a strategy through, let alone deliver shareholder value.
This, at least, is the industry myth propagated mostly by those in other departments who view marketers' prominence in businesses with a combination of scorn and envy. The fact that marketers and agency heads alike have long believed this piece of folklore is evidence of the success this campaign of undermining has achieved.
However, exclusive research by The HPI Research Group for Marketing has finally laid this untruth to rest.
The average time a marketer spends in a role is actually more than double that of the 18-month stereotype - three years and three months. More importantly, marketing directors stay even longer, for an average of four years and two months.
Beneath the headline figures lie inevitable differences according to age and seniority. Marketers spend an average of two years and two months in the same job in their 20s, rising to two years and nine months in their early-30s, and four years and four months by the time they hit their mid-30s. Measured by job title, the figures differ only slightly (see graphic, below).
However, while the rate of job change is slower than the rumour mill would suggest, there is still evidence that marketers move on faster than their colleagues in other departments.
A survey of 22,480 managers across all departments, carried out by the Chartered Institute of Management earlier this year, found that 4.6% of marketers had handed in their resignation within the past 12 months, compared with 3.2% of people in finance, 2.9% of HR professionals and just 1.9% of research and development managers. The only group to move faster than marketers are actuaries and pension managers.
Anecdotally, it seems the only people switching jobs quicker than marketers are those in sales. 'Sales people move jobs faster than marketers because it is much easier to judge them on their results,' says Grant Speed, director of recruitment agency Michael Page's marketing division.
Hugh Burkitt, chief executive of The Marketing Society, believes that there are two main reasons why it is inevitable that marketers move around quicker than their colleagues in other departments. 'There is more expected of marketing directors than other positions, so they come under the spotlight more frequently. A finance director, for example, simply keeps the score and as long as he does that correctly, there is no reason to face pressure. Marketers hold much more responsibility for the general health of the company.'
The second reason for the speed of change, adds Burkitt, is that marketers are headhunted more often than other professions. 'It is very obvious externally when marketers are successful and it is only natural for people to cash in on that fame.'
The research figures raise an interesting issue: how long should marketers spend in jobs in order to benefit their careers? And do marketers' own career imperatives work against shareholder value of the companies they work for?
It is a subject that polarises views. Headhunter Lindsay Leslie-Miller at Hunter-Miller believes the brightest marketers are the ones who move jobs faster than the norm, typically switching roles in under two years. 'These are the exceptionally clever people who are willing to relocate,' she says. 'You can see these types pulling ahead of their peer group by the age of 27.'
The typical pattern, she adds, is that young marketers trained by the hallowed 'academies' of marketing at Procter & Gamble, Unilever or the handful of other blue-chip firms that operate on a similar scale, move on to faster-moving sectors by their late-20s. 'They learn the basics at these big companies but soon crave more responsibility. Retail, telecoms and financial services are the hottest destinations for bright young marketers.'
Mike Hoban, customer and brand marketing director of Scottish Widows, is one marketer who has followed this pattern (see box, page 28). His early years were spent at food and drinks companies; he then moved on to retail and an airline before arriving in financial services. He has never spent more than two years in one post.
Similarly, Joe Garner (aged 36) and Paul Geddes (37), both P&G graduates, spent the period around the turn of the century in a series of year-long stints at retailers before arriving in financial services in 2004, Garner at HSBC and Geddes at Royal Bank of Scotland. Both now hold board-level posts.
Hoban is firmly of the opinion that, for career marketers, rather than those aiming for general management, there is much to be gained from switching jobs fairly frequently.
'Our benefit to financial services companies is the external perspective and solid FMCG grounding in marketing we bring,' he says. 'My time at BA and Scottish & Newcastle Retail has taught me how important the retail experience is to consumers' perception of brands and it is something financial services have only recently taken on board.'
Hoban is such an advocate of the merits of bringing a fresh perspective that he believes marketers are of greatest value to a company during their first three months. 'When marketers are recruited externally it is usually because the company wants to effect change and there are really only 90 days to get the most important parts of that done. The first month is spent understanding the company and discovering what needs to be done; during the second month, people must be aligned behind the new thinking; and the third month is spent securing quick wins, increasing the efficiency of systems, including supplier policies, increasing the focus on customers and recruiting people to bring in marketing excellence.
Hoban's plan is short-term but designed to elicit long-term brand changes. But the very notion that any marketer could feel that their job is done in 90 days enrages Professor Malcolm McDonald, emeritus professor of marketing at Cranfield School of Management, who says it takes three years, not three months. 'It is easy to maximise profits in the short term,' he argues. 'I could go into any company and increase profits overnight by cutting adspend, bringing in cheaper agencies and raising prices, but what damage would it do in the long term? It takes at least two or three years for the results of properly thought-out strategies to emerge, and that should be the timeframe marketers concentrate on.'
Hoban counters that a marketing job is never finished. 'It should be less about asking what can be done in an arbitrary period of time and more about looking at what you have done to prompt change within an organisation.'
Another way marketers can fast-track their career while maximising the application of their experience for the company is to move swiftly through jobs within the same firm.
Gayle Ashley has spent her entire career at cosmetics and haircare firm L'Oreal Paris since leaving college seven years ago, working for between six months and two years in each role, before finally rising to the post of marketing director.
She maintains that the lure of headhunters' offers is not so hard to resist 'when you can see the range of opportunities available to you within the company you are working for'. Like Hoban, Ashley insists that shareholder value is best served by having a fresh pair of eyes - although she admits that six months was far too short a period to spend in one job, 'but the job I was offered was too good to refuse'. She feels that within the whirlwind world of FMCG, it is perfectly possible to see through a product development project within a year.
This is tempered, however, by her admission that 'there is enormous value in maintaining the history of a brand within a company and to learn from the trials and errors of the past'. Sector knowledge, after all, is not picked up easily. 'There is something to be said for being an expert in your field,' says Ashley. 'I worked on haircare for three years and even when I moved on I still felt there was plenty of scope for me to learn.'
Motivation tactics
It is up to companies to motivate their ambitious marketers sufficiently that they are not tempted to move on. Ashley recognises that she has moved quickly up the L'Oreal ladder, which may not have happened had she changed companies. 'I have felt secure that my career has been managed with my best interests in mind - possibly because I have been very vocal about my ambitions,' she says.
The Marketing Society's Burkitt names Tesco as another company that works hard to retain its best marketing expertise, giving them the kind of rounded business experience that makes them truly valuable. 'Really great marketers are not good at just marketing, but at all aspects of the business they work in,' he says. 'To achieve true success, it is vital to have this understanding of the full spectrum and, without a doubt, three years is too short a time to be able to achieve this.
'Much of Tesco's success comes from the fact that it holds onto its staff,' he adds. 'It has an excellent remuneration policy and then ensures that its marketers are well looked-after, giving them no reason to leave and arming them with a wider understanding of the retail sector.'
The need for knowledge of marketing as well as an understanding of wider business issues is what Burkitt believes separates good marketers from great ones.
They might be in the minority, but marketers who choose to stay within the same company, moving progressively up the ranks, do not necessarily kiss goodbye to career success. Toyota commercial director Paul Philpott has spent the past 10 years at the motor manufacturer (see box, opposite), and his long experience working for the company's Japanese owner means he can play the tricky political game of localising marketing while retaining the beneficial parts of the global brand heritage.
This also highlights another truism in the game of job moves, say observers, that some sectors are more tolerant of job switchers than others. The motor industry is notorious for preferring to grow its own top marketers. Conversely, markets such as telecoms, utilities and financial services, which have seen saturation of consumer demand in the past few years, now need more marketing expertise and are consequently keen to take on people with a breadth of sector experience.
But there is a danger for marketers of taking advantage of this need for their expertise, says McDonald. 'If there is no marketing culture to start with, it is a hard thing to introduce and marketers can feel isolated very quickly,' he says. 'It is not surprising in those cases that they take the headhunters' calls.' This may explain the speed with which some race through jobs.
There are many ways to climb the career ladder, but it is at least worth pausing for thought before moving back through the revolving doors to weigh up whether your lengthening CV is working for you or against you. The 18-month myth may have been shattered, but the jury is still out as to whether sticking around for four years and two months is essential.
RESIGNATION RATES
- A survey of 22,480 managers across all departments by the Chartered Institute of Management earlier this year found that 4.6% of marketers had handed in their resignation within the past 12 months.
- This figure compared with 3.2% of people in finance, 2.9% of HR professionals and 1.9% of research and development managers.
- The only group to switch jobs faster than marketers are actuaries and pension managers.
REASON FOR MOVING
- Marketing's exclusive research in association with HPI Research Group showed that 65% of 30- to 34-year-old marketers cited experience of a different firm as the main factor in moving jobs.
- The second-biggest reason was the desire for more responsibility, mentioned by 52% of this group.
- The appeal of different brands and markets was the third-biggest reason, cited by 35%.
SWITCHER - MIKE HOBAN (40)
1987-1989: Marketing trainee, rising to assistant brand manager, RHM Foods
1989-1990: Brand manager, Allied Lyons
1990-1994: Product manager, rising to senior product manager, Jacob's
1994-1997: Project consultant, rising to senior consultant, PDP International
1997-2000: Marketing manager, stationery, rising to general marketing manager, WH Smith
2000-2001: Marketing director, rising to management board, Boxclever
2001-2003: Head of customer insight, knowledge and strategy, rising to head of customer insight and brand strategy, British Airways
2003-2004: Marketing and strategy director, Scottish & Newcastle Retail
2004-2005: Head of customer strategy, rising to head of brand and customer insight, Barclaycard
2005-2006: Customer and brand marketing director, Scottish Widows
STAYER - PAUL PHILPOTT (39)
1987-1997: Various roles, including brand manager for small cars, Ford
1997-1999: General manager of marketing, Toyota GB
1999-2003: Marketing director, Toyota GB
2003-2006: Commercial director, Toyota GB.
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