Sweeping technological change has revolutionized marketing, while societal challenges have raised expectations about marketers' social performance. This has altered customer needs, accelerated the entry of new types of competitors, and generated novel opportunities for value creation. It has also transformed how the function must work, requiring that it become more agile, interdependent, and accountable for driving firm growth. The authors provide a framework to help leaders identify the organizational design and capabilities needed to build a competitive, next-generation marketing function. Their framework has been used to guide marketing transformations at companies across industries, including consumer packaged goods, transportation, financial services, and retail.

Consumers increasingly expect brands to have a social purpose beyond mere functional benefits. As a result, companies are taking social stands in very visible ways. For example, TOMS's one-for-one program donates shoes and other goods for every product the company sells. Such programs can benefit society and the brand, but they may fizzle or actually harm the company if they're not carefully managed. (Recall Starbucks's widely mocked Race Together campaign.) Marketing professors Vila and Bharadwaj have developed an approach they call "competing on social purpose," which ties a brand's most ambitious social aspirations to its most pressing growth needs. An effective strategy creates value by strengthening a brand's key attributes or building new adjacencies. At the same time, it mitigates the risk of negative associations and threats to stakeholder acceptance. In order to create value for all stakeholders--customers, the company, shareholders, and society at large--managers must integrate considered acts of generosity with the strategic pursuit of brand goals.