In Memory of a Marketing Man

On the news of his death, Michael Bayler reflects on the impact Fellow of The Marketing Society, Tim Ambler had on the marketing profession.

A little history

When I came from the music industry into marketing, some 25 years ago, both were, as the phrase goes, in their pomp. The cold breath of digital had yet to hit the necks of either business hard, though marketing had already long been under pressure from leadership to justify itself. At the time, I believed that - strange as it may now seem - marketing was a lot more exciting, even exotic, than music. I was especially fascinated by brands and branding, already something of an unacknowledged skill in popular music. Sadly, the value and relevance of marketing and brands to business has since been poorly defended in the C-suite and the boardroom. I can’t name a single book published this century that addresses these crucial problems with any conviction.

Oh. Except one. Tim Ambler’s (now out of print but findable) tour de force, the prosaically-named “Marketing And The Bottom Line”. More of that below.....

Mr Ambler passed this year on August 3rd, after a long, and I like to think, very satisfying, fully lived and thoroughly considered life.

A tiny snapshot of his credentials. As marketing director of International Distillers, he was instrumental to the success of Bailey’s Irish Cream, working on many other brands now mostly owned, of course, by Diageo. He was later Senior Fellow in Marketing at London Business School. He was recognised by Marketing as one of the hundred most effective figures in the marketing sector, and by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of the fifty top marketing experts worldwide.

So … Been there, done that.

Against mediocrity

Stepping briefly back to my own time in music, there was - and perhaps still is, but rarely - a phenomenon known as “the record man”. There were of course more than a few women who fully deserved the accolade: Estelle Axton, legendary co-founder of Stax Records, comes immediately to mind.

The majority back then were, not exclusively, men such as Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler of Atlantic, John Hammond of Columbia, and far more recently, Rick Rubin of Def Jam and Def American (whose recent book on creativity I can’t recommend strongly enough). Male or female, the record man understood deeply and instinctively the tension between the creative and commercial. He or she was also, crucially, more than willing to push back against the forces of mediocrity. Of which, as the business became increasingly consolidated and corporate, there was more than enough.

This is how I think of Tim Ambler. He would have been a consummate record man. As it turned out, he was, I believe, one of the finest examples of a marketing man.

As a passionate advocate of the very best that our discipline can achieve and deliver to business, he balanced a profound understanding of the role of brand and branding, with the forensic approach to commercial value, and the right metrics for the right job, of a fully qualified accountant. Which is what he also was. Above all, Mr Ambler had the courage, the intellect, and the vision to challenge the moribund misconceptions that have dogged us for so many decades. I invest time myself at this often unrewarding coalface, so I can claim with some confidence that no one has done this, in this century, better than Tim Ambler.

An especially pleasing example of this, from 20 years ago, yet more relevant than ever today, is his astringent essay “ROI is Dead: Now Bury It”.

A venerable tradition

Repeatedly, over too many decades, great marketing thinkers have argued persuasively for ways of thinking about and doing marketing that, had they been at the time fully understood, advocated and adopted, would surely have steered us away from the too-familiar problems we still agonise over today.

US academic Wroe Alderson, writing in 1957:

“What is needed is not an interpretation of the utility created by marketing, but a marketing interpretation of the whole process of creating utility.”

Stephen King of JWT in 1971:

“I wonder whether all top managements are involved deeply enough in the nature of their brands. Do they realize fully enough that is from the success of brands rather than products that the profits will come? Do they fully understand the nature of brands? Do they set company objectives in terms of brand positioning or simply in financial terms?”

Tim Ambler continued the foundational work of giants like these. While he published a number of clear and beautifully written books on marketing, and, later in his career when he was a Senior Fellow of the Adam Smith Institute, wrote with the same astringent wit and wisdom on policy, the must-read is “Marketing And The Bottom Line”, first published in 2000.

I can’t think of a better way to close this rather sketchy and very personal in memoriam, than to quote from that marvellous work. I mentioned above Mr Ambler’s passion for great brands and branding. Here’s what he has to say (among countless other glorious soundbites) about a deeply-troubled business essential.

“If brand equity is so big, why can't the CEO see it?

One has little perspective of an elephant if one is riding on it. Rather, it provides a platform for an elevated view of the surrounding countryside. In the search for new lands to conquer, the well-being of the elephant itself is easy to overlook. Elephants, like brands, are expensive to maintain. If the CEO cuts its rations, performance in the short term is undiminished, and the return on investment has gone up. So the rations may be cut again. If that continues, the elephant will one day have the best ROI in the jungle. The next day it will be dead. CEOs are not mahouts and all too few recognize that they should keep the beast in fine fettle.”

A marketing man through and through. A painful loss to all those close to him, naturally. But also a precious gift to those who take time to pay attention to what will survive him: his quite extraordinary thinking and writing. Although I never met him, I’ll miss him.

Tim Ambler. 1937-2024. RIP.

Published 30 August 2024