The Australian Marketing Institute is setting its sights on non-marketers to help raise the profile of marketing within organisations.
The AMI’s remit has long been to help marketers raise their profile and the reputation of the discipline within the business community as a revenue-driving part of business, but AMI CEO Lee Tonitto, 100 days into her tenure as head of the body, believes that the key to achieving that will be targetting not just marketers but also non-marketers.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics counts 50,000 people working in marketing in Australia, Tonitto said, but the Australian Marketing Institute’s own data claims that one in two – half – of the adult working population is involved in marketing in their role in one way or another.
She told AdNews: “One in two adults has something to do with marketing in their role. If we want to shift the dial on marketing’s standing in business, we have to get to these non-marketer people, and help them with their marketing needs.”
Part of the need to involve non-marketers is the ever broadening reach of marketing, she said, highlighting that the AMI was also working in collaboration with other member bodies such as the AANA, ADMA and AIMIA.
“Marketing is the natural domain for the customer journey, so the marketing bodies and associations are the natural place to help do that,” she added.
“If you think about the networked [marketing] community, we know a lot of people, so watch this space. What should galvanise all of us is that it’s going to be led by training and professional development.”
That collaboration between organisations is often discussed, with some, who wished not to be named, suggesting the proliferation of organisations representing the interests of the marketing and advertising community is detrimental to achieving any aims. Tonitto, however, said that, far from consolidation in the space occurring, yet more member organisations are likely to emerge – each representing additional niche segments of the discipline.
“Marketing is getting increasingly specialised and the number of professional bodies will increase, if anything, as there will be continuing shifts in the number of services marketers offer. As the nature of marketing changes and takes on different forms, the diversity of organisations will grow,” Tonitto said.
“Strategically, the span of the discipline is broadening, and in response there will be the rise of different models to serve marketers’ needs. But the most important thing is the willingness to understand and collaborate,” she said.
The AMI this week revealed that it would be asking members for a one-off $99 “service enhancement fee” to help cover its financial costs after a raft of structural changes to the organisation added unforeseen costs and led to cashflow issues.
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