Calling all advocates - Part II

In a side-bar to the piece in Ad Age about Forrester's proposal to re-make Brand Managers into Brand Advocates (see earlier blog), Rishad Tobaccowala, Denuo CEO, observes that marketing departments are getting smaller at exactly the time they need to be getting bigger. This is about the most important thing to be thinking about in our business today.

The media and marketing world is doing just what it's supposed to do - and has ever done - in order to keep up with the growing complexities of society: it is getting more complex. The marketing business, however, is still being made to atone for the excesses of the last era, when costs continued going up long past the point of observable returns; when advertising was in its extravagant period of broadcast television and mass circulation newsweeklies.

It is time to move on. More risk-taking in defense of the business. Better compensation. More, not fewer people. These are things marketing needs to be working on in a complex world.

Brands need advocates. Marketing needs advocates, too.

Follow Jarvis Coffin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GJC3