The key perspective missing from academia and existing as the elephant in the room in corporate politics is the truth that most executives don’t know the basics of marketing.

A CEO of one of the world’s largest corporations told me candidly,

“Leigh unit I met you I didn’t know marketing was a science… I thought it was smoke and mirrors, fluff and a load of BS”.

It’s because operational marketers have secured routine appointments to strategic roles in which they are not adequately trained and knowledgeable.

When marketing and MBA graduates study, they work towards their goal of passing their exams and securing their qualification.

Three weeks after they pass, they begin to forget what they studied. After three months, they’ve forgotten half. And after three years, it’s a vague memory.

Yet, this is when strategic know-how starts to become important. And still, it might take 30 years before that knowledge is crucial. What do you think is left?

Even so, larger businesses make fewer mistakes than small ones, because (along the way) some managerial and strategic know-how does infiltrate policy.

However, without managing an integrated marketing mix, companies experience arguments over initiatives, information silos, power-mongering, office politics, poor employee engagement, sub-optimal productivity, and corporate blunders.