It is a collective responsibility of the C-Suite to educate themselves on long term sustainable customer growth versus knee-jerk short-term reactions. Long term growth requires focus, clarity of strategy and flawless execution.

A high-performance team, not just the CMO, needs to work as one to make this happen. The other executives in that team need to be as focused and supportive of the marketing function as we are … it can’t just be lip service or the easy option to save funds. Cutting marketing is a lose-lose, not only short-term, but as an investment in the future. Marketing can play a really important role to connect all aspects of the business. This ensures the whole business has a focus on the customer and the brand.

Everyone talks about creativity – but the short-term focus and sacrifice in chasing sales is the ultimate distraction and obsession.

Right now, we need to be more focused on executing creativity in a more difficult media landscape than ever before. This changing environment has put the customer firmly in control and of course, we know they are better educated. More importantly, we need to be at the absolute top of our game to demonstrate and validate how this obsession will achieve growth.

I’ve been lucky to work in roles that are broader than marketing (and with CEOs who understand the value of marketing) on instantly measureable brands and products. It has taught me to truly understand my customer and to have a medium- to long-term lens on transactional marketing results.

As an industry, this is where we need to focus: being realistic, showing our value and ensuring we add business value … not just create campaigns.

We must understand who our customers are. What is important to them? What the market trends are and what the growth drivers of our businesses are.

It is only then we will demonstrate our true value.