What you need to know:

• ADMA has launched a Capability Compass skills assessment tool and program aimed at helping marketing leaders better gauge the gaps in their function’s knowledge and find a way to fix them. A reengineered approach to skills assessment off the foundations of an assessment tool first launched in 2021, it was developed with input from members, stakeholders and Mark Ritson.
• The association has defined 65 skills across 13 marketing disciplines and put these under three distinct phases: Analysis, strategy and execution.
• The need for a better way to understand and build technical marketing skills was made stark in a survey of 150 Aussie marketers released at the recent ADMA Global Forum. Only 32 per cent of respondents could articulate what the 4Ps stand for, and even fewer could calculate ROAS, or detail the three forms of media. Per Ritson: “It’s hilariously bad. We’re not talking about competence or skills or capabilities yet – we’re just pointing out most marketers don’t know anything about marketing.”
• For former customer chief, CMO and now executive recruiter, Stuart Tucker, growing complexity and breadth in the marketing discipline has made it critical to have such a tool that anchors the profession and provides a pathway for professional development. As a recruiter, he noted the importance of a structured approach to assessing candidates and said the aggregate data ADMA’s tool could provide long term was an exciting prospect. “Just imagine, if this became a universal tool and if a senior marketer could share their Capability Compass with a future employer,” Tucker said. “Or imagine if it was universally adopted and the ADMA Capability Compass could be a source of truth for capability right across the nation of marketers. That would be pretty amazing.”
• Tourism Australia CMO, Susan Coghill, sees collaboration and understanding other teams as a big win for using the Compass with her global marketing teams. Its customisation against strategic foundations was also critical given the unique situation application of marketing depending on business and environment.
• Both Tucker and Coghill are also less concerned than several other industry pundits who’ve welcomed the tool but cricitised its allocation of things like CX and digital into executional capabilities, saying it’s better to start somewhere and get some learnings than try to get it perfect.

Pursuit of more agility in marketing has left marketing teams heavily weighted on delivery and only accelerated the demise of key capabilities across the 4Ps, Hourigan International partner, Stuart Tucker, believes.

“I actually believe the agile approach we're taking with practice leads and tribes is getting us even more delivery based rather than skill based,” the former CMO, customer chief and now executive recruiter told Mi3. “Campaign integration is another key. It worries me we've been losing the art of brief writing, agency management, creative assessment, adapting creative by channel – it's a bit of a lost art and we lost our way a bit.

“The third one, which has always been part of the four Ps but I think it is a bit of a dying art and many times is being removed from the market, is pricing. Pricing should be the domain of the marketing team and it's probably one of the most important levers you can pull to either gain retain or develop customers. It's critical.”

Then there’s the art of brand strategy, which Tucker is most definitely also worried about. “Not the art of making ads, which too many marketers think equals brand strategy, but inside lead proposition development, CVP, creation experience design, and skilful execution that may or may not end in an ad. The great brands and brand experiences live across every touchpoint internally and externally,” he said.

Tucker’s comments come after the starkly poor state of marketing skillsets and capabilities was brought into violent relief at the recent ADMA Global Forum. In a recent survey of 150 Australian marketers conducted by the association in partnership with former marketing professor and Mini MBA in Marketing founder, Mark Ritson, the pair found that when it comes to the 4Ps of marketing, less than one-third (32 per cent) could spell out the acronym to price, product, place and promotion.

Fewer than half could place quantitative research as the alternative to qualitative research, and only 17 per cent knew what a ‘native ad’ is in a digital advertising context. Meanwhile, only about one in four could tell you physical availability complemented mental availability in the mix. When asked to fill in the blanks on an ROAS calculator, only 16 per cent knew to put revenue divided by cost. What’s more, only one in five knew the three types of media: Owned, earned and paid.

“It’s hilariously bad. We’re not talking about competence or skills or capabilities yet – we’re just pointing out most marketers don’t know anything about marketing,” Ritson told attendees.

And that's before you get into stuff like unit economics.

Capability Compass

The apparent skills chasms have led ADMA to launch a new Capability Compass assessment tool and program aimed at helping marketing leaders better gauge the gaps in their function’s knowledge and find a way to fix them. The Compass was developed with the input of ADMA members and stakeholders across the industry including Ritson.

The association has defined 65 skills across 13 marketing disciplines and put these under three distinct phases: Analysis, strategy and execution. These 13 marketing disciplines are: Insights, opportunities, learnings (analysis): strategic direction, brand development, planning (strategy); and distribution, campaign integration, product innovation, marketing technology, pricing, customer experience and compliance for marketers (execution).

It’s not the first time ADMA has attempted to address skills auditing. Its former Marketing Skills Assessment Tool, which debuted in 2021, originally focused on four main quadrants: Discovery, strategy, planning and execution, exploring 12 capabilities and more than 35 skills have been identified. The new Compass has been positioned as a rebuilt and re-engineered approach and focus – and notably, one that drops generalist soft skills areas to concentrate on technical marketing skills.

With marketing getting more complex thanks to data, privacy, segments, ever increasing channels, martech and remits,Tucker, who is on the advisory board of ADMA, said having a tool that can help CMOs pinpoint the knowledge gaps in their teams against the capabilities most relevant to their category and company was a constructive step forward.

“Something that anchors us around a tool that helps marketers be the best version they can be in this complex world can only be a good thing,” he said. “It’s really important marketers are aware of their development opportunities, either for themselves or their teams or both. And why don't you want to do that in the long run? It's going to make your team more effective and more high performing. But it's also going to be critical for employee retention so it should form a really critical part of an employee value proposition.”

As a recruiter, Tucker noted Hourigan applied a highly structured approach to the way it assess candidates, whether it's in marketing or other roles. “What we're trying to do is match strengths to a brief: Where is the brief looking for certain capability or experience. This type of tool is like a very formalised way of doing what we do today,” he said.

“But imagine if this became a universal tool and if a senior marketer could share their Capability Compass with a future employer. Or imagine if it was universally adopted and the ADMA Capability Compass could be a source of truth for capability right across the nation of marketers. That would be pretty amazing.”

Once a CMO or team leader sets their strategic priorities in the Capability Compass, team members are sent a survey to complete, then provided with personalised results on areas of strength versus capability areas to improve. Insights are confidential to the individual and provided in aggregate to the CMO / leader. For ADMA, learning and development is best broken into a 70 / 20 / 10 approach and the tool advocates next steps in three areas: 70 per cent on-the-job training; 20 per cent mentoring; and 10 per cent formal education.

"Marketing is evolving at an unprecedented pace and it can be hard to identify where the genuine gaps are in a marketing team’s skills and empower marketing leaders to build teams ready for the future of marketing,” ADMA CEO Andrea Martens said upon launching the program. “Capability Compass isn't just a tool; it's a powerhouse for any business that wants to foster a culture of continuous improvement and excellence. It provides a 360-degree view of functional marketing skills and enables leaders to pinpoint strengths and areas for development aligned with their strategic goals."

Situational relevancy 

Heartbeat Suite chief Anthony Toovey is a former senior FMCG marketer who has been working with ADMA to build out the Capability Compass. He told Mi3 the emphasis on tangible marketing skills and capabilities was based off member insight that too many tools can be too broad. Even so, given the specificity of skillset most organisations and teams need weren’t covered in the original ADMA assessment tool.

“What I probably should have known as a seasoned marketer – but didn't – is there are some skills that are relevant everywhere, but some are only relevant here and some are only relevant there. We really toyed with how we deal with that,” Toovey explained. “Take banking: Physical product innovation is not relevant, I don't need to know that timeline. But if you're an FMCG marketer and can't do that, don't turn up. ADMA then addressed that through the leader survey, which allowed us to ask the team leader, which skills are absolute priorities for you, which are relevant, and then which just aren't relevant. Therefore, the whole data map the team leader gets can be tailored around relevant skills for you. That allowed the ADMA Capability Compass to then get very specific on skills.

“My first thought when Andrea showed me this was for someone who had no time and no resources, I would have killed for this.”

Customising the skills assessment is something ADMA has already seen scoring particularly well in trial runs of the Compass.

“People were wanting to segment their teams in ways we hadn't necessarily anticipated, but allows them to get the data they need. There’s such nuance,” Toovey said.  “When I was at Unilever, I segmented my team entirely differently than I did when I was at Primo. I would have used the same tool and cut it very different ways. At Unilever, I would have cut it by junior and senior; at Primo where I had a much broader team, I would have done it by the skills this team needs versus the skills this other team needs.

“There were some things I looked at and went gosh, I couldn't have even told you all those things about martech. Working for a Unilever, there is this whole department you never see that you don't need to. But then when I move to Primo, I realised how exposed I was as a mid-tier CMO with no global support, and I relied on my agencies to do a lot of that. It’s an uncomfortable position because can you really rely on your agencies to do a lot of this, especially the compliance?

“Likewise I looked at innovation and used that as an example before because I thought, this doesn't cut out for an FMCG CMO. So we really beefed that up and felt comfortable doing that again, because we knew that if it's not relevant, you'll screen it out.”

The question of how much learning and development is formal versus through accessed via informal pathways is one ADMA has also attempted to address by taking what Tucker described as the core 'three Es' of learning and development: Exposure, experience and education.

“I would say in my career, either for myself or members of my team, taking on another role for a maternity leave has probably been career defining. There are many, many occasions where you've just gone, okay, I'm going to learn something new. Courses are important but that sort of thing is great as well,” he said.

Right skills fit?

The debut of ADMA’s Capability Compass has met with some criticism from wider industry on whether the skills listed are in the right buckets of analysis, strategy and execution, and if they’ve been given sufficient weight. While supportive of the effort, customer experience (listed in execution) and digital transformation (listed under marketing technology and without its own slice of the pie) were both singled out as bigger areas requiring more significant and strategic skills development by industry commentators on LinkedIn including Arktic Fox founder, Teresa Sperti; author, Aarron Spinley; Bennelong Funds Management CMO, Ella Tassi; and Eaton EMEA digital business unit leader, Brian J Curran,

It’s a sign of just how far the industry needs to come to be able to agree on what really makes up modern marketing today. But Tucker is quick to dismiss the chatter.

“Everyone's going to have a point of view on it but sometimes marketers are their own worst enemy and with each other and we just should adopt it and have a go,” he said. “It’s same with what happens in the creative industry on Campaign Brief or whenever new ads come out. We're an industry that eats its young, and we're going to need to be better than that, right? We're going to support each other come up with a consistent framework and just go with it.”

Tourism Australia buys in

Tourism Australia CMO, Susan Coghill, who is on the advisory board at ADMA, described the Compass as a “Kick up the pants to recommit to learning and development for ourselves and our teams”. At the national tourism body, Coghill oversees a brand and campaigns team, PR/social content, digital platforms, plus in-market team around the world. She’s used the former ADMA assessment tool and is excited by the more “well-rounded” option focused on getting the foundations right.

“That’s super important to me. As a marketer, all success begins and ends with having your foundations right,” Coghill told Mi3.

Coghill’s initial question was how the Compass would suit diverse teams. “One set of skills and priorities is going to be very different team by team. This ensures flexibility, and my senior team saw usefulness in it as well,” she continued. “That said, the second thing I really liked was in taking the assessment, your teams will broaden their perspective around marketing. They’ll have a better understanding of what colleagues are doing, better understanding and empathy of what they go through to be more effective.

“I’ve worked in all different environments, and the brands and businesses that succeed are ones that really embrace contributions, do it genuinely and don’t pay lip service. We’re pretty good at that at Tourism Australia, and that continues to be the focus. The tool will help. Even with teams in market, I want to get regional marketing managers to do assessment as well ... It’s about having common knowledge and understanding of what good marketing looks like and how you round out your skills.”

With Compass available at aggregate level to the leader, but respecting the individual’s ownership of the information, Coghill believed it may provide a way “for marketers to get over reticence and admitting what you don’t know”.

“As leaders and managers, we can create education programs for teams but they need to be personally invested. If you show me somebody who has invested time in their development, I’ll bet that’s the person who will be promoted,” she continued.

In Coghill’s opinion, data literacy is going to be a common gap across marketing teams. “It’s not just numbers, but turning it into a persuasive argument to help drive the right outcome for the business and the industry,” she said.

But she also agreed with Tucker that the pursuit of agility and digital has left gaps in strategy and analysis that need work.

“There’s so much more marketing science out there helping us to do better job. Digital evolution adds layers of complexity and opportunity, but understanding consumer behaviour now, advertising effectiveness – all these tools and skills available to help us be better marketers. But it’s a lot. In some ways you don’t know what you don’t know. In a way the tool is an eye-opener,” Coghill said. “In the rush to make digital output the focus of everything, it has at times come at expense of the strategic third of the journey. Do your analysis, get your strategy right is key.

“We have leaned into that so heavily at Tourism Australia. We’re excellent at execution, but in such a hyper-competitive environment, we need to put extra muscle into the analysis and strategy to make sure we figure out what will [be the] growth benefits. It’s important all CMOs and marketing leaders put more emphasis on this.”

Coghill also expressed empathy for criticism as to whether the Compass tool has it all right. “There are just so many different aspects and opinions. But I don’t think that could stop anyone from using the tool and learning from what is there. There are different ways to look at these things,” she said. “Strategy and execution is multi-layered, therefore some executional skills can still be in the grey area between these. It doesn’t stop anyone from taking the learnings and applying them.

“Marketing is very situational, you have to apply it to your unique environment. Try to create something that works for absolutely everyone, you’ll be doing it for years and years. ADMA has done a great job of collecting and organising all different skillsets and creating a framework for learning.”  

Benchmarking marketers

The question of how CMOs better recognise the capabilities required within their modern marketing teams and address gaps in current skillsets to improve the impact of marketers in business isn’t one ADMA alone wants to try and answer.

As Mi3 has previously reported and supported, the Australian Marketing Institute (AMI) last year launched its own Marketers Competency Framework covering 25 essential competencies and proficiency levels necessary for success in marketing careers in five buckets: Insights, customer experience, strategy, brand and digital. It’s then tied this to the AMI’s own accreditation program, Certified Practising Marketer (CPM).

Again acknowledging the breadth of skills required in marketing today as well as nuances across B2B versus B2C, or specific sectors, AMI chief Bronwyn Powell said not every marketer is going to be proficient in every capability – or needs to be. But the idea of elevating marketing to a discipline along the lines of accountancy requires better clarity, assessment and development of key marketing skills.

There’s recognition ADMA will likely need to update skills like compliance at least yearly, and will review education content and recommendations annually, but with insights and some more fundamental things, there’s less revision expected.

Meanwhile, the ways the tool can start to shine light on the gaps in marketing skills across the industry more broadly is building quiet excitement. While ADMA hasn’t stated a longer term ambition on how it would like to see the capability tool deliver more benchmarking on skills across the industry, Tucker wasn’t so shy.

“I would like to see at least 100 ADMA members have put their marketing teams through it, then we can look across and we can look down and we can start seeing where the gaps exist, across the whole country. That will then help us as an industry rally behind certain skills and also, help ADMA shape a lot of its content,” he said.

“Let's just say we had 100 clients with 500 staff, that'd be 5,000 data points that we could then sit back as an industry and say how are we doing? Why don't we just all get behind a target like that? It would be incredible.

“You could compare your team to another team that is in its same maturity curve or same size. And maybe the CMOs could buddy up and compare notes and say, hey we could have a mentoring scheme that goes between us, or could put out teams through some training together, right? I think it'd be really interesting when you see that.”

That’s if CMOs can find the time to get into the assessment and then follow through with learning and development. Too often, the refrain is CMOs are too stretched to be able to take on another proactive duty, something Tucker is also highly dismissive of.

“Candidates talking to me about roles are actively asking questions about the organisation's commitment to learning and development. If the senior leaders are not committed to capability assessment and the ensuing development programs, then they're not meeting the needs or potential of existing employees, and they're not delivering against the employee value proposition. I think it's non-negotiable. Time is an excuse.”