The Role Of Marketing — 2005
A recent MORI survey on behalf of The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) reveals that although most UK marketers assert that marketing is a priority in their company's business strategy, securing marketing budget can be a very different matter -- particularly in the very largest businesses.
Two-thirds (63%) of marketers questioned for the study say that marketing is a "high priority" within their organisation, while only eight per cent say that it is a "low priority". But while 49% of firms with a turnover of over 163100 million say that marketing is regarded as a "high priority", this figure rises to a substantial 88% among organisations with turnovers under 1631 million.
The trend also seems to be reflected in what is going on in Britain's board rooms. It is in the small organisations that marketers are most likely to be represented at board level. Over three-quarters (77%) of the smallest companies have a marketer on the board, but this figure falls to 37% in companies with a turnover of between 16351 million and 163100 million, rising slightly to 51% in companies with turnovers above 163100 million.
This belief in the importance of marketing appears to be backed up by real investment, especially among the smaller organisations. Companies with a turnover of under 1631 million spend just over 10% of their turnover on marketing -- above the national average figure of 7.2%. However, for some, securing marketing funding is not straightforward. Although just a third (32%) of marketers in small companies claim that it is "difficult" to secure funding for marketing activities, by contrast two-thirds (66%) of those in the largest organisations find securing marketing budgets to be problematical.
Technical details
A total of 760 of The Chartered Institute of Marketing's UK members completed the online questionnaire, which was hosted by MORI from 12-23 September 2005. A broad cross section of organisations by sector, turnover and geographic location was achieved.
