Q1 • 2024


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“There’s one specific development that


has created overwhelming complexity for marketers at all levels, and that is how we’ve now scattered to millions of digital channels to view and engage with content versus just a few channels, which used to be the norm,” says Davey, who now runs his own marketing consulting group from Massachusetts. “The number of diverse channels we now must feed has driven the need for massive, specialized content development and distribution, more detailed analytics on media spending and optimization, and extra focus on the many shopper personas and journeys.” Davey says this complexity requires specific strategies and frameworks to manage so that marketers can focus on the areas that will add the most value. It also means the skill sets required to staff a marketing team have expanded from primary core marketing skills and abilities to areas such as e-commerce, Amazon, performance marketing, fast- turn content production, social platform management, digital tools, and vendors. “The list seems to expand every year,”


Davey says. “And AI integration is on deck.” His credentials as a marketing leader would be reason enough for an interview, but we also wanted to chat with Davey because he is now sharing his knowledge with future marketing pros. In 2022, he began serving as an adjunct lecturer for the MBA program at his alma mater, Boston College. We cornered him when he wasn’t teaching or consulting to ask him how the marketing profession has changed during his career and to see if we could pilfer a bit of new knowledge from what he’s impartingarting to the master’s students in his Strategic Brand Management course.


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Q: You posted on LinkedIn recently about something that many of our readers can likely identify with—the propensity for marketing to inadvertently become complicated. In order to align on target, relevance, positioning, competitive  the importance of asking yourself two questions: “Why do they need it?” and “Why do they need it from me?” But what do you think is often the cause of this inadvertent complexity?


Jim Davey: I continue to see this play out in my consulting practice where I see


companies with differing views of the brand’s strategy struggle with misaligned campaigns and executions. It happens when new strategies are layered on top of current strategies on top of core strategies and then wrapped in overarching strategies, like a big burrito. That causes complexity when there needs to be prioritization. It’s like building a house where there are so many changes by so many parties over time that you can hardly recognize the initial blueprint and what was intended.


Q: Beyond asking those two simple questions you mentioned, what’s the solution to better prioritization?


JD: During my time across six companies during my career, I developed a process called


the Brand Blueprint. The goal is to focus on how to align teams—product, marketing, retail, sales—in which customers matter, how we serve them, and how we win through differentiation. The Brand Blueprint links research and analysis to brand positioning to brand actions, so that everyone in the organization understands the path forward. Essentially, it’s an aligned brand strategy. Then, there’s at least something to check back to as new product, marketing, or distribution decisions are made to ensure consistency and make sure the blueprint is a working document.


Q: The MBA students in your Strategic Brand Management course at Boston College are preparing for careers in client- and agency-side marketing, as well as building, improving, analyzing, and buying  the students you teach today compared to when you started your career?


JD: Having grown up in a world where new information or specific answers are just a few


clicks away, today’s students have far greater knowledge about the world, brands,


It also means the skill sets required to staff a marketing team have expanded from primary core marketing skills and abilities to areas such as e-commerce, Amazon, performance marketing, fast-turn content production, social platform management, digital tools, and vendors.


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