Melbourne Professor Thinks The Marketing Industry Is Broken

Melbourne Business School’s oft-outspoken Mark Ritson discusses why marketing is broken–and what can be done about it.

With the digital overhaul facing marketers and business strategies today, do all the new platform bells and analytical whistles actually amount to anything?

Not exactly. When he looks out across the marketing industry, Mark Ritson sees clients and agencies that have largely lost their business direction. The Melbourne Business School adjunct marketing professor attributes a lack of industry training in the basics as feeding the perpetual gap between how marketers think consumers behave and how they actually do.

“If [marketers] had been properly trained, the first thing they would have been trained on is market orientation, which means you are not the consumer,” Ritson says. “What you do and think is highly, highly unrepresentative of your consumer because you’re being paid to market a product, ergo you don’t see that product or service the way the consumers do.”

In this two-part series, CMO Show hosts Mark Jones and JV Douglas sit down with the oft-outspoken Ritson to discuss why the industry is broken.

Part 1:

Part 2:

The CMO Show is a podcast about brand storytelling and the future of marketing. To listen to previous episodes, visit the website or follow along on iTunes or SoundCloud.