Marketing is not suffering a crisis of confidence so much as a crisis of clarity, according to OLX CMO Andrew Garrihy, who says businesses no longer know what they need from the function.

"I think there is a challenge with confidence, but I think it's misdiagnosed. I think the real problem is a lack of clarity right now," Garrihy said on the latest episode of Marketing Week's webinar series The Lowdown, ahead of the Festival of Marketing on 14 October.

He described confidence as a "lagging indicator", because in marketing, "we have a lot of things that are not clear".

Garrihy's diagnosis responds to a wider debate. In July, Sainsbury's chief technology, data and marketing officer Mark Given urged the industry to address a "crisis of confidence" as he stepped into the ISBA president role. Garrihy, who will offer one-to-one masterclasses at the Festival of Marketing, argues the roots run deeper.

"A lot of businesses at the moment are not super clear on what they need from marketing. The world has changed really rapidly," he said, citing war, economic crisis and technological disruption among the factors. Because of these headwinds, there is no "real clarity" on what businesses need from marketers.

Garrihy was joined on the panel by fellow Festival of Marketing speakers Emma Harris, founder and CEO of Glow London, and Ifeoma Jibunoh, former CMO of Cassava Technologies.

Three crises, four questions

Jibunoh believes the crisis of clarity compounds with "a crisis of contribution and a crisis of connection". She set out four questions every marketer should ask themselves: "Do we know what we're trying to achieve? Does the company know what it's trying to achieve? Are we ensuring that marketing is making the right contribution that has an impact? And are we ensuring that marketing is the connective tissue in the organisation?"

Harris argued marketers need to "work out what matters", however "obvious" that sounds.

"You've got to work out what it is you're doing, and that sounds really obvious. But I think there's so much swirl going on in the industry at the moment because there's panic," she said. Marketing has slid down the "funnel of performance", she noted, meaning "everything is immediate" rather than long-term.

When Harris meets a leadership team, her first questions are: "What is it we're doing, and who are we?"

"You'll get different answers from different leaders," she said. "So it's that clarity at the beginning [that's important]."

The CEO-CMO clock problem

The disconnect between CEOs and CMOs remains a sticking point for marketers' sense of clarity. Jibunoh argues the two roles are "working to a different time frame".

"They're working to a different clock, oftentimes. The CEO has to report in terms of business results in quarters, and the reality is that brands are not built in quarters," she said. "So that disconnect in relation to timing and in relation to deliverables, often causes a degree of tension."

Her solution: marketers should "embrace the time frame that is relevant for your different stakeholders". That means demonstrating "concrete, bottom line revenue growth" and KPIs reported in quarters, while also taking stakeholders "on the journey to understand that there is a long-term, value creation journey".

Delivering on the quarterly schedule while being transparent about the "longer-time frame" marketing requires, she said, "ensures that you are doing the right things to ensure you unlock that longer-term value creation".

Influence, don't educate

Garrihy dismissed the long-running effort by marketers to explain their function to the wider business. Marketers "don't need" to try and "educate" colleagues on what marketing's job is.

"Marketing's our job. Our job is to influence the business, not educate – I think that's a big thing for marketers," he said. "We should influence based on our results, based on the commercial impact, but we shouldn't educate."

Jibunoh acknowledged the tension cuts both ways. "A friction that I've seen is in relation to organisations not really understanding what marketing is there to do. So yes, it's not our job to educate, but a lot of times you have C-suite stakeholders who don't really understand the role of marketing," she said.

"So there is a degree of evangelising, maybe not educating, but evangelising that is required to demonstrate the connection marketing has to the bottom line."

Her most "successful" C-suite relationships came when counterparts had a commercial background. But she was clear that a CMO's success cannot depend on a "marketing literate CEO".

With the Festival of Marketing opening on 14 October, the panel's message to marketers is direct: define what matters, align to the quarterly clock without abandoning long-term value creation, and influence through commercial results rather than explanation.

Source: Marketing Week (https://www.marketingweek.com/marketing-leaders-finding-clarity/)