David Aaker brand strategy guru
Spanning Silos: The New CMO Imperative 
~ David A. Aaker
Haas Marketing Professor Emeritus David Aaker shares insights from his recently published book, Spanning Silos, at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. Aaker explains how organizational silos — defined by products, countries, or functions — have become barriers to effective and efficient marketing and strong brand development. This lecture is part of the Dean’s Speaker Series and the David Aaker Distinguished Lecture Series in Marketing.
How to create a "road map" for marketing success in a "hot, flat, and crowded" world
Spanning
Silos: The New CMO Imperative
~ David A. Aaker
by Robert Morris - Dallas, Texas
Over the years, David Aaker has published more than 100 articles and 14
books, including Managing Brand Equity, Building Strong Brands, Developing
Business Strategies, Brand Leadership, Strategic Market Management, From Fargo
to the World of Brands, and Brand Portfolio Strategy. In this his latest book,
he examines a subject of special interest to me: organizational
"silos." I agree with Aaker that there are situations in which they
can have substantial value. Aaker uses a silo as a metaphor for
"organizational units that contain their own management team and talent and
lack the motivation or desire to work with or even communicate with other
organizational units." The largest organizations are collections of silos
that can be classified according to the country in which they are located, the
product(s) for whose marketing they are primary responsible, or their
operational (non-marketing) function such as IT and HR. As companies such as
P&G, GM, HP, and Unilever demonstrate, there can also be silos within silos.
Up to a point, a decentralized structure that not only allows but indeed
supports silos is desirable.
But there can also be problems with silos, especially in a world that Thomas
Friedman has characterized as "hot, flat, and crowded." According to
Aaker, "relying on unfettered decentralized organizations with highly
autonomous silo units is no longer competitively viable. The world has
changed...Silo-spanning brands increasingly require consistency and synergies.
There is a drive for marketing accountability that is inhibited by the silo
structure. The need for deep expertise in cutting-edge marketing disciplines,
difficult to achieve in a fragmented organization, is emerging at a rapid pace.
There is also an increasing intolerance of inefficient and ineffective marketing
that is coupled with an increasing ability to discern when they are around and
about. Marketing is called on to do more with less and the inherent inefficiency
of silos has become a significant burden...There is just too much at stake to
allow silo interests to inhibit or prevent the effort toward achieving strong
brands and effective marketing. That does not mean that the answer is to disband
silos." Rather, organizations must determine how to eliminate the problems
caused by silos without losing the benefits they can provide. Aaker advocates
the need for a chief marketing officer (CMO) who concentrates on achieving that
worthy objective.
Throughout his narrative, Aaker responds to questions such as these:
1. What are the major silo issues?
2. How have various global organizations done about them?
3. What has worked? Why? What hasn't? Why not?
4. What are the best-practice approaches?
5. What insights has his extensive research revealed, including interviews of dozens executives revealed?
What Aaker provides in this book is a "road map to success" for
CMOs and their associates. He identifies the major silo structure-driven
problems, the most important action items and the key barriers facing CMOs. He
also identifies indicators that decentralization is out of control and
recommends corrective initiatives that encourage more and better allocation of
marketing resources, clarity and linkage in silo-spanning brand strategy,
silo-spanning marketing offerings and programs, marketing management competence,
leveraging success, and communication and cooperation. The material is carefully
organized so that a CMO will be well-prepared to determine what the right role
and scope for her or him will be, how to gain credibility and buy-in, how to use
teams and other means to silo linking, how to develop a common planning process
and information system, how to adapt the master brand to silo markets, how to
prioritize brands in the portfolio, and finally, how to develop winning
silo-spanning marketing.
My frequent use of the word is "how" is deliberate. Aaker briefly and
skillfully identifies the "what" in the first chapter or two, then
focuses almost all of his attention on the "how." He is a relentless
empiricist and a diehard pragmatist. For example, drawing in part from a study
of some 55 successful virtual task forces and teams, he offers ten suggestions
in Chapter 3, Pages 90-92. In the next chapter, he provides seven specific
recommendations to increase usage participation within an organization, to make
it more widespread, on Pages 121-122. And then in Chapter 6, Aaker focuses on
what he characterizes as a "Brand Priority Framework" for determining
the relevant brand set, selecting brand assessment criteria, completing brand
evaluation, prioritizing various brands, developing the revised brand portfolio
strategy, and then designing and implementing the migration strategy.
In my opinion, this is David Aaker's most important book thus far. His brilliant
use of various reader-friendly devices such as dozens of "Figures,"
check-lists, key points identified by italics and/or bold face, charts, and
a "For Discussion" section at a chapter's conclusion all add
substantial value to the rock-solid content. Bravo!
Click the link or the image below to read more:
Spanning Silos: The New CMO Imperative
~ David A. Aaker
More About David Aaker
David
Aaker passion is understanding brands and helping firms build brands and
brand portfolios.
Let him present himself:
My first brand book, Managing Brand Equity defined brand equity and set
forth its value to a firm and its customers. The second, Building Strong
Brands, described the "brand identity" model that many firms use to
manage their brands and also introduced the Brand Equity Ten measurement
structure. The third, Brand Leadership extended the brand identity model and
adding material on brand building programs. The fourth, Brand Portfolio
Strategy, introduces models and concepts that allow a firm to sort out the
complexities of brand portfolios and the priorities and relationships that
define them.
My latest book, not counting my autobiography, is Spanning Silos that presents
research showing the problems that product and country silos organizations pose
to those who would build brands and create effective marketing and what some
firms have done to create cooperation and communication to break down the silo
barriers.
I am a part of Prophet, a global brand and marketing consulting company that is
on the forefront of branding issues, professor emeritus of the Haas School at
UC Berkeley, and an advisor to Denstu. I live in Orinda, California near my
three daughters and seven grandchildren and try to do a lot of biking and just
enough golfing.
There follows the formal career summary.
David A. Aaker is the Vice-Chairman of Prophet Brand Strategy, Professor
Emeritus of Marketing Strategy at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley and
an advisor to Dentsu Inc. The winner of three career awards for contributions
to the science of marketing (the Paul D. Converse Award), marketing strategy
(the Vijay Mahajan Award) and the theory and practice of marketing (the Buck
Weaver Award), he has published over 100 articles and 14 books including
Strategic Market Management, Managing Brand Equity, Building Strong Brands,
Brand Leadership (co-authored with Erich Joachimsthaler) Brand Portfolio
Strategy, From Fargo to the World of Brands and his latest book, Spanning
Silos. His books have been translated into eighteen languages with sales well
over one million. Named as one of the top five most important
marketing/business gurus in 2007, Professor Aaker has won awards for the best
article in the California Management Review and (twice) in the Journal of
Marketing. A recognized authority on brand equity and brand strategy, he has
been an active consultant and speaker throughout the world and is on the Board
of Directors of California Casualty Insurance Company and the Food Bank of
Contra Costa and Solano Counties.
Discover books, 
learn
about David Aaker, read author blogs, and more.
› Visit
Amazon's David A. Aaker Page
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