I’d like to congratulate the Chair of the Australia Marketing Institute for such an articulate and educate response to Geoffrey’s article.
Roger James’ response highlights the fundamental problem with our Institute. Australia’s leading marketing professional body lacks any real credibility; it has no vision of the future, it’s bland and does not connect with the vast majority of marketers, in Australia.
Our Institute leaders have failed to respect the needs of all its members, who just want to be heard. Roger James seems to have a George Bush attitude of you are with us or you are against us.
I see Geoffrey’s comments as a marketer who is passionate about our Institute and the broader marketing community. As a marketer and an Institute member, I expect all comments or complaints to be embraced and celebrated, NOT ridiculed or labelled as a hunched back whinger. I especially have concerns when these words come straight from our Institute Chair.
Roger James is proud to talk about our Institute’s growth, but HELLO! The stark reality is that our Institute has had little growth over the last tens years. It’s your numbers! It has only attracted 10% of professional marketer’s living and working in Australia.
Roger James must be proud that 90% of all professional marketers living and working in Australia have never heard of the Institute or even worse, decided it’s not worth joining. I call it failure. God help Roger James if Gordon Ramsey visited the Institute’s Oval Office.
I would like to praise Geoffrey for starting this open debate. I’d also like to thank all the other contributors to this friendly debate, even the ones I do not agree with. For the first time, our Institute members and the broader marketing community has had an opportunity to engage with other marketers across Australia in a frank open conversation about their Institute.
It is not Roger James’ or Mark Crowe’s Institute, it is our Institute. A free open debate…isn’t it wonderful? It’s the best metrics!
Roger, is it too much to ask for you to embrace openness, candor and strive to build trust across the whole marketing community. The barbarians are not at the gates. Yet!
But, what really concerns me is our Chair freely admitting he knows that there are unhappy members, but decides to ignore them and berates them. Labelling those who complain as some for form of hunch backed marketer and saying - Sorry. Maybe it’s you. Roger you must be so proud.
Our Institute Chair should be the custodian of our image, our values and our vision. Our Chair needs to look to the future, engage in conversation with all members, monitor the Institutes pulse and represent all marketers, not a few. In his response, has Roger James done this? NO!
I believe Roger and his marketing neo cons are fixated on the marketing metric and events, neglecting the one true initiative that gives members credibility, the Certified Practicing Marketer (CPM) program.
If marketers are going to be relevant in the marketplace, we need a CPM program that marketers, employers and even recruiters embrace. Currently, the Institute is failing to build this awareness. It’s a worthless piece of paper. There is no awareness or credibility.
If the Institute love metrics…why doesn’t our Institute monitor the success of the CPM program? Why doesn’t our Institute publish any metrics on the CPM program i.e. awareness levels or even the number of companies actively looking for or employing CPM’s.
In my view, our Institute has pursued a rare beast; it’s called a white elephant and in doing so wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars in human resources and hard cash, on a metrics program that in my opinion is totally irrelevant to 95% of all Institute members.
To some people it maybe ground breaking, but to me this work has already been done many times over. It is a dead duck.
Let’s look at some simple metrics. How long has this program been going? 5 years? If the marketing metrics program is such a big ticket item for marketers and businesses people a like, then, marketers across the land must be rejoicing.
How many out of the 1.25 million registered businesses in Australia or 60,000 marketers are using our new marketing metrics? You must be measuring? Is it 50%, 10%, 5%, 1% or is it nil? Roger, please prove me wrong…I’m a big guy!
Our Institute has failed to keep up with the needs of its members and the broader marketing. I reject Roger’s glossy words that our Institute is at the cutting edge of marketing. I like to use the term laggard.
Marketers like Geoffrey and me feel our Institute is not performing to its full potential and the numbers that Roger supplied to this debate shows this.
Roger, it is nature to be scared of change.
But as Chair, you have a responsibility to embrace member suggestions or comments, not ignore or berate members by calling them a hunch backed marketer.
I may be a hunch backed marketer, but unlike your bland wallpaper, I don’t live in an Oval Goldfish Bowl.
Roger, people like Geoffrey and me are not going away, because we are called marketers. It is up to you to evolve out of the goldfish bowl and learn to hold a conversation with all marketers.
This hunch back is not going away. Vote 1 for Geoffrey!
