undervaluing even one area can weaken the entire strategy.
Brand Marketing
Brand marketers shape perception over time. Their job is to tell the story, build awareness, and cultivate emotional connection. Their work often doesn’ t result in immediate sales- but it builds trust, which becomes the reason customers choose you over competitors.
Think of brand marketing as planting seeds. You may not see growth tomorrow, but the brand equity built today will yield long-term loyalty and recognition.
Performance Marketing
Performance marketers focus on results you can measure today- clicks, conversions, cost-per-acquisition. They optimize campaigns to deliver ROI and ensure budgets are well spent. But here ' s the trap: without brand marketing, performance marketing becomes more expensive and less effective over time. When customers don’ t know or trust your brand, every conversion costs more.
Content Marketing
Content marketers are educators and storytellers. They create blog posts, whitepapers, newsletters, videos- assets that don’ t sell directly, but build credibility, attract organic traffic, and establish thought leadership.
In B2B industries especially, content marketing is often the first handshake between customer and company.
Public Relations( PR) & Communications
Yes, PR is marketing. They manage reputation and narrative. They respond in crisis, shape how the public sees the brand, and ensure internal alignment between company values and outward messaging. When PR is reactive instead of proactive- or worse, ignored- brands lose control of their own story.
Creative & Design Teams
These are the visual architects of your brand. They bring concepts to life, ensure brand consistency, and communicate emotion through visuals, layout, and typography.
Treating design as " just decoration " rather than strategic communication undermines your brand’ s credibility.
Of course there are other marketing professionals, like administrators, product developers, researchers etc, who all play a critical role in the success of each marketing campaign.
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Many organizations undermine their marketing teams- often unintentionally. Here’ s how:
Cutting Budgets Too Quickly
When sales slow, marketing budgets are often the first to go- without engaging marketers or considering long-term brand effects. Ironically, research consistently shows that brands who maintain marketing spend during downturns recover faster.
Ignoring Brand Building
Brand health is like fitness: you can’ t just exercise once and expect lifelong results. Brand building takes time and consistent investment- but it pays off in resilience and market share.
Excluding Marketing from Strategy
When decisions about pricing, product launches, or customer experience are made without marketing’ s input, the voice of the customer is lost. This is how we get products no one asked for, or price points no one will pay.
Micromanaging Creative Work
When leaders insist on dictating campaign look-and-feel based solely on personal taste(“ I don’ t like maroon”) or ignore data insights because they“ feel wrong,” marketing becomes guesswork.
Expecting Instant Miracles
Marketing impact compounds over time. If every campaign had to go viral to be deemed a success, there would be no strategy- just gambling.
And do you know what happens if organisations continue on this path? Well, here is the real cost of undervaluing marketing as a strategic enabler:
Missed Opportunities
Without a visible, trusted brand, highvalue opportunities can slip away.
Customers may choose competitors simply because they’ re more familiar. Even if your product is better- perception wins.
Strategic Blind Spots
Marketers bring insight from the outside in. They know what customers are saying, how competitors are moving, and what the market is hungry for. Excluding them from strategic decisions can result in tone-deaf messaging, poorly received launches, or irrelevant products.
Team Burnout & Turnover
When marketing is undervalued, marketers feel it. They’ re expected to deliver miracles with minimal budget, unclear strategy, and shifting expectations. Over time, this creates disillusionment, high turnover, and loss of institutional knowledge.
Weak Brand Foundations
Every time a brand changes direction without consistency, or launches without clarity, it chips away at trust. Without steady marketing leadership, brand equity erodes quietly- until you realize no one knows who you are anymore.
Marketing in Africa has proven to be a critical factor separating brands that thrive from those that struggle or stagnate. Several examples demonstrate the consequences of undervaluing marketing- and the rewards of investing strategically in it.
Some established African companies have historically underestimated the power of marketing, treating it as a mere cost or an afterthought. For instance, certain telecom operators relied heavily on traditional channels and delayed embracing digital marketing or consumer engagement strategies. This reluctance to evolve limited their ability to connect with younger, techsavvy consumers, ultimately impacting market share and brand loyalty. Without clear communication and engagement, these brands missed opportunities to build meaningful relationships or differentiate themselves in competitive landscapes.
On the other hand, brands like Safaricom in Kenya offer a compelling counterexample. Safaricom’ s marketing strategy has been deeply integrated with their business model, especially with the success of M-PESA. Their campaigns go beyond promoting products; they tell stories that resonate emotionally, highlight real-life benefits, and build trust over time. This consistent investment in marketing helped transform Safaricom from a telecom provider to an indispensable part of everyday life for millions, securing
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