Byron Sharp is a guest on Cure Media's podcast: Here are 3 key takeaways

Ahead of the 100th episode of Cure Media's Influencer Marketing Talks podcast, they had the unique privilege of interviewing one of the world's most influential marketing experts, Professor Byron Sharp. Byron is director of the renowned Ehrenberg-Bass Institute Adelaide in South Australia and author of the famous book How Brand Grow, considered by many to be the most important book on brands and the role they play in our decision-making. This is his first appearance in a Nordic podcast.

Always-on remains critical to drive growth

During the interview, Byron shared his view of today's media landscape. Despite it being more than 10 years since the book was released, he stands by his principles, claiming that these have not changed - even if the landscape has evolved in recent years.

Something that is just as important now as then is the importance of working always-on towards your target group, something that Byron underlines: "every day someone buys from you and you never quite know when that person is going to do that.So you should always be on". This applies to both mental and physical presence, something that Byron talks about more in his book.

Today's CMO’s are shooting themselves in the foot

When it comes to Byron's view of marketers, he believes that we have come a long way, but that there is still more to be desired. “Marketers' knowledge definitely has increased, but old habits can be quite hard to change. I always joke to people that it took doctors 100 years to start washing their hands, and sadly, that is actually true. So we shouldn't expect marketing to change overnight”, Byron says.

Byron even goes so far as to claim that we have a problem with under-educated CMOs. He gives an example of when, a few years ago, he was introduced to the marketing director of a "large American, global consumer company" who had no idea of the principles in his book. “When I came and met him, I thought, you just got this job without knowing these things. That will not happen in 20 years time", Byron says.

Byron goes on to talk about how he sees many CMOs shooting themselves in the foot today by painting an example scenario: “The CMO tells the CFO that if you give me this much money, I will make sales go up by 7% next year. But if sales go up, they still can't prove to the CFO that it was thanks to the increased marketing investment”. Byron likens it to the fact that those in charge in the factory would never phrase it as " give me this new machine and you'll get 5% more market share”. Instead, they say, Give me this new machine and you'll have less wastage. Byron means that you need to think of metrics that are appropriate for you. For a CMO, it's about explaining how with an increased advertising budget you will reach x number of more people, instead of promising the moon.

The jobs that will be replaced by AI

Finally, the conversation turned to AI, something that Byron also believes will be groundbreaking for marketing: “AI will be very useful in getting rid of those mundane jobs in marketing. These social media sweatshops will be replaced by AI. All those poor young people who have just come out of university and find themselves glued to a computer being told “you've got to put out three Tweets and two Instagram posts a day” - that will be replaced by AI for sure”. Byron concludes that the need in the future will instead be more intelligent planning marketers.