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Governance

Keep an eye on marketing if you want to avoid a car crash

Published 28 January 2025 in Governance • 6 min read • Audio availableAudio available

As campaign disasters at Apple, Bud Light, and Jaguar demonstrate, boards shy away from marketing oversight at their peril.

In 2004, Harvard Business Review published an article noting that despite misguided marketing strategies having “destroyed more shareholder value than shoddy accounting or shady fiscal practices”, marketing functions typically reside deep in the organization, far from the boardroom.

Over the past two decades, it has become even more evident that marketing campaigns that land badly can pose a significant risk to brand value, particularly amid the rapid emergence of social media and generative AI. There are various explanations for why marketing expertise is uncommon on boards, including in-group bias, where existing boards, which often comprise individuals with non-marketing backgrounds, tend to favor candidates with similar profiles from their own networks.

However, the most prevalent reason is a belief that boards should be focused on strategic rather than tactical issues. As marketing is seen to be tactical, many directors consider monitoring marketing activities as overstepping their remit or “getting too far into the weeds”.

A 2019 study by Spencer Stuart found that less than 3% of seats on Fortune 1000 company boards are held by directors with marketing acumen, and there is no reason to believe there has been a significant shift in the intervening years.

Particularly in today’s digital era, there is a growing need for boards to provide more effective marketing oversight: to ask the right questions and ensure the right processes are in place to avoid the kind of crises that have affected several leading brands in the past 18 months.

In 2023, the Bud Light campaign featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney led to a significant backlash, particularly from conservative groups who felt alienated by the brand’s decision to take a social stance that they perceived as out of touch with their values. The resulting boycott had a notable impact on the brand’s value and sales, particularly in Republican-leaning areas in the US. By July 2023, the market value of Anheuser-Busch had plummeted by $20bn, and sales of Bud Light had dropped nearly 30% year-over-year.

Consider also the controversial “Crush” ad for Apple’s new iPad Pro, which depicted a hydraulic press crushing objects to highlight the product’s capabilities. This did not go down well, given its perceived negative message about technology overriding human creativity and destroying the human experience. Apple was forced to pull the campaign and issued a statement saying: “We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”

Colorful encounter: Jaguar's new advertising campaign has bemused and outraged in equal measure. Image: Jaguar.com

Jaguar’s recent release of a new logo and a social media tease featuring a diverse group of models in bright clothes but no vehicles prompted widespread bemusement and derision, with Elon Musk posting,“Do you sell cars?” and others criticizing the brand for “going woke”.

Nearly all the “top like” Instagram comments on Jaguar’s post were critical of the concept: the top comment (liked more than 13,000 times) claimed the company had killed a British icon. Jaguar’s CEO hit out at what he called “vile hatred and intolerance”, a stance which might feel out of tune in what has been heralded as the end of the era of “woke capitalism” following Donald Trump’s election victory, with a wave of major companies from Walmart to Ford to Harley Davidson recently dismantling or dialing back on DE&I teams and initiatives

The FT’s John Burn-Murdoch noted that the past 10 years would go down as the decade in which ROI and P&Ls were overtaken by ESG and DE&I and corporate culture and communications moved from being predominantly conservative and understated to increasingly progressive and activist. However, away from the politically driven clamor, it is worth bearing in mind that most brands are just trying to retain current audiences while reaching new ones. For many traditional brands with an ageing customer base, in particular, their new target audience of Millennials and Gen Z constitute a highly socially conscious consumer group who prioritize ethical considerations when making purchases.

Woke or non-woke, there is no getting away from the fact that brands must be able to articulate their purpose and values, and it’s critical that they understand their consumer base’s position on societal issues. In addition, more and more employees – another key stakeholder group – expect their workplaces to embody meaningful values and purpose, with Gartner’s recent Human Deal study finding that employees are seeking deeper connections and shared purpose in their work environments.

Here is where boards can – and should – help by providing diverse perspectives and oversight to marketing practices in line with an organization’s strategic goals, mission, and values.

“Nearly all the 'top like' Instagram comments on Jaguar’s post were critical ... the top comment (liked more than 13,000 times) claimed the company had killed a British icon.”

How boards can help

Here are five ways boards can step up to enhance their oversight of marketing:

1. Align marketing with strategy: objectives and reviews

Ensure that marketing strategies align with the company’s strategic objectives and values. Encourage management to provide transparent, honest, and regular marketing updates that allow the board to ensure marketing remains on track and in keeping with the company’s vision and goals.

2. Embrace data and analytics: dashboards and decisions

Use tools like dashboards to monitor data on marketing performance against KPIs and campaign objectives. Benchmark marketing performance against industry standards and best practice. Champion the internal use of data and analytics to inform marketing decisions, leaning into the opportunities offered by generative AI to rewire internally for a more unified view across disparate systems and platforms.

3. Manage the risks: identify, mitigate, and plan

Routinely assess the risks related to marketing campaigns, from reputation to regulation, and seek to actively mitigate and manage these risks. Crisis management plans should be in place to respond to negative publicity or other consequences. In the event of a crisis, as a board member, you should know the protocol for how the board will be contacted and when and which board members will be involved.

4. Advocate for ethical practices: standards and accessibility

Boards should clearly signal their commitment for marketing to meet ethical standards. Additionally, more and more brands are committing to making their advertising accessible to everyone, whether it’s consumers with visual or hearing impairments, motor accessibility, and/or cognition challenges. Ensuring ads are accessible to all is not only an opportunity for brands to amplify their reach but also to reinforce brand values centered around empathy and social responsibility.

5. Seek out stakeholder views: external and internal

Board members should also consider the appropriate way to ensure they maintain healthy communication with, and get to hear the perspective of, stakeholders including customers, investors, and employees, to keep their fingers on the pulse. Many companies have regular external stakeholder council meetings which board members can attend. At Media Trust, a big part of our work is connecting organizations with civil society groups to exchange insights and foster meaningful allyship. Depending on the strength of stakeholder feedback, boards should be prepared to challenge marketing strategies.

For too long, marketing has been seen as beneath the remit of many corporate boards. However, in light of some very public marketing disasters and the heightened risk to brand value, reputation, and sales, it is time for board members to step up. By embracing a structured, informed, and thoughtful approach to oversight, boards can help to optimize the positive impact of marketing strategies while negating or – at least – reducing the fallout from campaigns that slip up.

Authors

Su-Mei Thompson

CEO at Media Trust and a commissioner at the UK’s equality and human rights regulator, the EHRC

Su-Mei Thompson has been running Media Trust, a dynamic charity that works in partnership with the media & creative sectors to give charities, community under-represented communities and young people a stronger voice while helping the media sector to be more responsible and representative. Additionality she is a commissioner at the UK’s equality and human rights regulator, the EHRC.

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