Two Ways to Integrate Brand Marketing Companywide

Savage's Robin Tooms looks back at the best strategies for integrating marketing companywide, to bring value to areas of the business outside the traditional marketing domain. Brooke Mathes-Yep, vice president of corporate marketing for NCI Building Systems, and Janet Gurwitch, founder and former CEO of Laura Mercier cosmetics, share their strategies for expanding marketing influence.

Robin: Hello and welcome to this edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies. I’m Robin Tooms, Vice President of Strategy at Savage. For this edition of Brandonomics we’re going to look back at two ways that marketers can help bring value to other areas of the company, beyond our own areas of responsibilities.

First up is Brooke Mathes-Yep, vice president of corporate marketing for NCI Building Systems. She has a great strategy that marketers should pursue for increasing the value that marketing provides to the company.

Brooke: One example at NCI Building Systems is we have implemented a system of marketing forecasting and guidance, and where as previously we operated more intuitively, now marketing’s role is to gauge the various markets and to bring those opportunities to the business in advance so that they can prepare. And we’ve had several successes as a result of that, and once you do that, business leaders will see the value that marketing can provide.

Robin: Our next Brandonomics guest took the role of brand & marketing providing value a step further. What’s even more amazing is what Janet Gurwitch, founder and former CEO of Laura Mercier cosmetics, has done to bring branding expertise into the corporate boardroom, a model that other marketers should follow.

Janet: I think diversity in boards is key for whatever brand you have. And at Laz-E-Boy they had an all-male board, and they actually added two women when I got on their board, which was in 2009. They wanted someone who had been in the C-suite, and I had been CEO of Laura Mercier. They wanted someone who was from a different region. Laz-E-Boy is based in Detroit, and they wanted someone – I was from Texas obviously. And they wanted someone who had been with a high-end retailer, and I had been with Neiman Marcus.

Robin: I hope that this advice from our Brandonomics’ guests helps you think about how you can integrate brand and marketing into other areas of your company. Tune in next week for another edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies.

NCI Building Systems, Inc. designs, manufactures and markets a comprehensive list of metal buildings and components for construction in virtually every sector – commercial, industrial, agricultural, institutional and governmental. NCI builds communities, from schools to manufacturing and the places in between. https://www.ncilp.com/