What you need to know:

• Marketers need to cut the marketing jargon and turn results into hard data, according to Pet Circle CMO Jon Wild. It’s a crucial step to bridging the gap between marketers and finance teams.
• WW (formerly Weight Watchers) Director of Marketing Nicole McInnes has worked with finance teams that viewed marketing as expendable – and it doesn't end well. 
• Aligning CMOs and CFOs is the first step outlined in Atomic 212 bosses James Dixon and Claire Fenner’s new book, How to do Effective Media.

Marketers should bolster their team with data scientists that have stronger database skills than the company’s finance team if they want to get buy-in from the CFO, according to Pet Circle CMO Jon Wild.

Brand marketers using jargon like “engagement”, “marketing theory” and “emotional connection” entrench the divide between marketing and finance and make it easier to cut marketing dollars.

“When it’s bad, marketing for the financial team is a cost centre. It’s incumbent on you to prove otherwise,” Wild said.

“You make marketing look and smell very much more like a financial output, and suddenly, when you come to cutting costs, you’re not cutting a cost, you’re cutting growth, you’re cutting customers, you’re cutting revenue… I typically invite CFOs to creative pitches, so they can empathise and understand and buy into the creative message as much as they can into the media efficiency.”

Alignment between marketing and finance is the first step towards building an effective media system, agreed Atomic 212 boss James Dixon. He and the agency’s Managing Director Claire Fenner co-authored a book on the topic, explained in more detail in two recent Mi3 commercial podcasts.

“There isn’t the right perception of marketing as a growth centre these days, and I think that’s a big gap because they’re not being challenged and asked for what marketing can contribute to the business outcomes,” Fenner said.

Nicole McInnes is the Director of Marketing at WW, formerly Weight Watchers. In a former role, at eHarmony, she oversaw “dark weeks”, where the business could measure the impact of different channels. “Just to keep sense checking on the impact of a broadcast,” she said.

“I’ve worked with CFOs who really don’t understand marketing and its impact and have just cut it whenever they have the chance. I’m lucky enough now to not be in that situation.”

McInnes said investment in software that tracks digital and other media is crucial – it turns spend into numbers and data. “Which is often the language they speak, to show all media channels and the role they play in the whole media ecosystem,” she said.

This article is one of a series adapted from Mi3's commercial Market Voice podcasts exploring the eight steps to building an effective media system, based on Claire Fenner and James Dixon's book. Listen to the podcasts here and here.