Contemporary Issues in Marketing

Enjoyed talking with a group of 3rd Year Business Management Students at St Mary’s University, Twickenham on "Contemporary Issues in Marketing".

Whilst there are many challenges, most have been constant for decades (understanding the customer, building a point of differentiation, being smart on channels, sales/marketing alignment, etc. etc.). So thinking of "contemporary" issues was harder than I thought! I came up with five:

💥 Consumer Choice - the war for attention / consumers having infinite choices at their fingertips in milliseconds / how the customer controls the purchase journey
💥 Channel complexity - so many choices, so little budget / cutting through the digital noise / the yearly rise of new channels
💥 Sustainability - consumers demanding greater brand transparency on DEI, ESG & sustainability
💥 Skills - marketers needing to be much more multi-faceted across business, creative, data & program management
💥 AI - no presentation in 2023 is complete without AI! Those who embrace AI will win over those that don't

There are many more I could've added, I'm sure. Let me know your top 5?

Lots of great questions from the students too on ethics, politics in marketing, B2B vs B2C. Great to see such an engaged group. Thank you Lucy Timms for the invite!