Making friends with finance and the power of simplicity: Your Marketing Week
At the end of every week, we look at the key stories, offering our view on what they mean for you and the industry. From building a bond with finance to the importance of communication, it’s been a busy week. Here is my take.
New best friend?
The relationship between CMOs and CFOs is often fraught with tension, with marketing, which needs money, pulling in one direction, while finance, who controls it, pulling in another.
CMOs will say finance doesn’t appreciate the value of marketing, while finance will accuse marketers of not understanding the bigger picture or appreciating the wider pressures on the business.
Neither is a good place to be.
For Motorway’s CFO Liz Kistruck, who was talking this week at the IPA’s Effectiveness Conference, it’s crucial that marketers prove the value marketing can deliver in a way that resonates with the finance team. Because, she said, when she gets challenged by the CEO or investors on why a certain budget is being allocated to marketing she needs to be able to “tell your story” and fight marketing’s corner. And that won’t be possible if the relationship is purely transactional.
