Instilling a culture of curiosity a challenge for marketing chiefs, says report

Marketing leaders recognise the value of curiosity but are struggling to embed it in their teams, according to a report by Creativebrief.

A survey of more than 50 chief marketers and marketing directors from brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Bacardi, Sainsbury’s and Adidas revealed that 100% of them believe curiosity leads to higher-performing teams and more effective marketing. 

However, many are not actively encouraging or rewarding curiosity in their organisations.

Key findings include:

• Less than a third of marketing leaders promote curiosity at all levels
• Only 22% of marketing teams regularly seek inspiration beyond their brands
• Just 20% of leaders set aside time for learning outside their sector
• Only 17% actively reward curiosity as a behaviour.

Charlie Carpenter, chief executive of Creativebrief, said, “The results of this research lay bare the challenges facing marketing leaders today. A lack of time and resource, competing organisational priorities and individual personal motivation are cited as the key barriers to enabling the conditions for curiosity to thrive—but marketing leadership teams must now begin to find a solution.

“Failure to change this is a non-negotiable in a squeezed economic environment where all brands are under pressure to do more with less. In this climate, every marketer is expected to act smart, innovate, and out-think (rather than out-spend) the competition. Curious cultures will be a key driver of any team’s ability to execute this.

“Senior marketing figureheads have a major opportunity now to drive competitive advantage through re-instilling the importance of curiosity into their teams at all levels—and ensuring they are able to recognise what effective commercial creativity looks like today and deliver it for their own brands.

“CMOs also have a responsibility in this regard to ensure that they do not oversee an era in which marketing functions retrench towards becoming more parochial and inward-looking than ever before.

“This must be a reset bred from the very top. Anything less would be a failure of leadership that our industry will suffer keenly for generations to come.”