Marketing departments: A room with three views

Quite recently, in a typical marketing department of an average company, three people discussed a product launch campaign. There was Jolene, the company’s 27-year-old budding talent; Michelle, the hyper-efficient doer in her forties who never lost track of anything; and Dan, a company alderman who had been in charge of many of the company's campaigns over the years.

All agreed that the essence of the new campaign idea was spot on for what they were trying to achieve. Michelle, who usually presented and challenged the thinking of the others, started the meeting by saying she had many ideas regarding the channels to prioritise. Just as she was about to continue, she realised that she had lost her audience at the outset. Jolene looked at her confusedly, and Dan eyed both of them with a look of disbelief.

- I'm not convinced that you are right about going into TV with this Michelle”, Dan started hesitantly. “I mean, using TV commercials when we are a B2B company… And it’s expensive too…” ¨

Jolene now looked even more confused.

- I hope you are thinking primarily about our YouTube channel. What channels do you mean? Now, when we have invested quite a bit in owning our channel on YouTube, shouldn’t we prioritise that one?”

It suddenly dawned on Michelle that they all had different interpretations of the term “channel.” For natives like Dan, channels meant TV channels. For digital immigrants like Michelle, channels meant marketing channels, and for digital natives like Jolene, channels meant YouTube channels.

Today, rooms with three views are commonplace at most companies and their marketing departments – what’s your native tongue? What marketing persona are you?

Learn more about natives, digital immigrants and digital natives.