More articles from the ' Industry, Marketing ' Category
Power Extreme? Does Marketing’s Power 100 suggest we’re an Industry of Shop Keepers?
So, apparently you need to work for a supermarket to be a ‘Powerful’ marketeer. Sainsbury’s, Tesco, M&S and Waitrose are all in the top 10, with Morrisons and Asda floating around the 20 position. That makes all of the above more ‘powerful’ than Google, British Airways, Ford, Sky, HSBC, Barclays… to name just a few. Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook just sneaks in at 100th spot.
The magazine does lay out their criteria for selection, and suggested it’s the people who ‘control the marketing campaigns that consumers see, hear and experience’. Well, in that case I think their commitment to grocers is a contradiction. Yes, I fully understand the key facts that a) we spend large chunks of our income at their shops, and b) a vast array of brands need to appease their trade customers if they are going to shift product (something that an agency like BD knows more about than most). However, supermarkets just ARE. That’s what they do. So much of their influence on our lives is due to proximity and variety, and you get the impression that although they do spend a lot of money, they are not the companies that really initiate changes in consumer behaviour. I think “Every Little Helps” or “Quality Food, Honestly Priced” are about reassurance, not influence.
What about people or companies that are in a position of power because they DO or WILL change the way we live our lives over the next few years. There’s lots of things to take into consideration here, not just spend, current brand power (and certainly not ‘Celebrity status’… feck me!). What about technology, consumer behaviour, the economy, globalisation, society trends? If you reappraise the decision-makers listed against those criteria, I think you’d get a very different top 20. On the back of my proverbial napkin, here’s what my alternative list would be:
- Tesco
- COI
- RBS
- BSkyB
- Apple
- HBOS
- Vodafone
- HSBC
- Channel
- LOCOG (2012 Olympics)
- British Gas1
- Sainsbury’s
- ITV
- Delia Smith
- Nike
- PC World
- Orange
- Nintendo
- Barclays
Responses welcome! If anyone has their own top 20, then post it as a response. If you are a client, and you’re gutted you’ve not made my top 20 then give me a call… I can be influenced with briefs.