A missed opportunity never shows up on the balance sheet. The customers we failed to understand, the products they would have bought, and the prices they would have paid — none appears as a line item. For the boardroom, they don’t exist and never did. Marketing’s costs are highly visible in the boardroom. When its contribution to business value remains unproven, marketing becomes an easy target for the first and hardest cuts.

The damage extends beyond budget cuts. Marketing has lost much of its mandate. Product moves to product management, price to sales, and place to channel, trade, and ecommerce teams. The CMO is left with promotion, tasked with generating demand for decisions made elsewhere.

Marketing’s understanding of the customer should inform all four Ps. Yet its dashboards largely measure promotional performance. Fast data helps optimize campaigns, while slow data connects customer needs to revenue, margins, and profit.…