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Philip B. Clement, global chief marketing and communications officer for Aon Corporation, is responsible for all of the firm’s marketing, including branding, external and public market analysis, and demand creation. Clement also oversees many of Aon’s programs in the areas of sales, sales systems, and innovation. Aon Corporation is a $10 billion company with 500 offices in 120 countries. A past president of BMA Chicago, Clement continues to rely on his “one-call network” of BMA peers for advice when marketing challenges arise.

BMA: You’ve been with Aon for almost five years now. What are some exciting company initiatives that you think are worth mentioning?

Clement: First and foremost, we overtook our biggest competitor and went from number two to number one in our space and really grabbed the solid lead position in our industry. We have executed a few acquisitions, probably the most interesting one being Benfield, which became our Aon Benfield business—a significant player in reinsurance. We brought those players together into one brand and identity. When I started with Aon, there was a logo and it had a graphic identity, but it had not yet defined its brand, so we had the opportunity to define and launch a brand around Aon, which was about 18 years old—a gangly teenager—at the time, meaning that the brand was not yet coordinated globally across the firm. We got a wonderful chance to create and define a brand and then distribute it across the globe.

We did have marketing, which was done in different countries all across the world. Some of it was brilliant, but it was all a group of soloists and the company was not yet singing as a “choir.” As a result, they kind of cancelled each other out and a lot of our marketing became noise and we weren’t always on the same page. As a choir, we were able to get more of a focused message into the marketplace and, ironically, it was more effective and we were able to reduce our costs. That’s because, rather than having hundreds of people defining brands across the system, we could have three and there were a lot of economies of scale that were beneficial to the organization as well.

BMA: Can you attribute credit to BMA in helping you to achieve that consistent brand message?

Clement: Yes, when I first became CMO here at Aon, I would say that probably five or six members of BMA were in my office within the first two weeks, helping me plan my first 100 days. These folks were CMOs at companies like Accenture and Boeing, folks who had worked for advertising agencies here in Chicago. They were extraordinarily helpful and many of my early wins in my new position, I am happy to say, were the result of some of the collaborative work I did with fellow members whom I got to know and trust over the previous three to four years in the BMA.
I would also say that taking a large global corporation like Aon from a system where the marketing was done locally to where we’ve gone has been a pretty fast evolution. The evolution involved defining a brand, distributing it globally, creating standards, rolling out a sales system globally, and rolling out lead-generation systems. It’s fair to say that when you are moving at a pace like that, you have to reinvent the department and some of your best practices. On an annual basis, it’s not as though we are using last year’s plan, we are re-planning from the ground up. In that environment, the learning that we have been getting, the speakers that we get every month telling us what the best marketers are doing, and getting market-proven ideas has been extraordinarily helpful. I would say that I get an idea at every luncheon that I take home and apply.

BMA: What ideas do you come home with?

Clement: Sometimes they are more notions of execution. If you say that there are 10 things you can do and someone has done them and they have worked, it reduces the execution risk. Some of these things can be as simple as how you might do an internal launch for a project, using a celebrity, making a video, or conducting an online survey. Then you go to a BMA luncheon and Boeing’s already done it, it’s worked, and they’re really happy with the results. Maybe they worked on it for two years to get the program up and running with nine months of very intense effort and the benefits of all of that are conveyed very simply just during the course of one luncheon.

BMA: For you, what things are the most valuable, or the most unique to BMA? Exposure to best practices—having those things almost virtually tested for you because other companies have done it—or the softer benefits, like having like-minded peers in your office when you first start and helping you?

Clement: It’s the notion of a close, trusted group of friends—I call it my one-call network—for any problem I have. I can get a really good perspective in one phone call through one of my colleagues at BMA. I’ve known them now for probably eight years. Some of them are on the board and I have met many other experts in the course of my involvement. The notion of having a group of smart, savvy people whom you trust and who have encountered a wide array of problems is very helpful for me. Of course, I really enjoy being able to return the favor when one of my colleagues needs help.

BMA: So what’s it like when you are at the table competing for budgets against the CFO, CEO, and CIO? Do you feel like you are a part of their world, or do you feel as though they don’t understand what you do?

Clement: When you have the C in your title, it’s your responsibility to understand that a dollar invested in marketing is a dollar not invested in HR, it is a dollar not invested in new systems, a dollar not funding additional sales professionals, it’s a dollar not invested in real estate or stock buybacks. Similarly, I think they my colleagues know that when they invest a dollar in their area, it’s a dollar that is not going back into marketing either.  As a result, it is not so much competition for budget as a discussion of what is best for our firm.  We are constantly discussing and looking for that balance. In that conversation, I do not feel out of whack with my colleagues on the executive team, but it is always great to have the best and the freshest ideas and be able to point to other folks who are enjoying success doing similar things.

BMA: So do you feel that this is the same at other corporations, that it’s not that marketing is misunderstood but that it’s as valued as all of the other areas of the business?

Clement: Absolutely. It’s kind of funny; I was with my team the other day and I was mentioning that we keep a little secret - marketing people are the ones who breathe life into an organization.  As we define the brand and the behavior of the firm we give folks their sense of identity, their sense of purpose and help define what they belong to. So I think that the marketing profession is a magical and unbelievably rewarding profession.  As a result, great companies lean hard on marketing. They really need us to do a great job and define what their organizations can do.

BMA: How does BMA help you develop your team?

Clement: We have a table at every luncheon and I encourage my team to attend and then have a discussion afterward. We encourage each other to find one idea in the presentation that they could emulate or improve, or something they might want to stop doing as a result of people’s setbacks. It’s helpful and we’re just constantly looking for external perspectives. When you are working as hard as we do, you talk to each other a lot and it’s extraordinarily important to get that third-party perspective and hear success and failure from other folks in the profession.

BMA: Imagine you got a call from a colleague who says that BMA is going away for some reason. How would you feel and what would you miss the most?

Clement: I would have to find another way to get together with some of my closest friends and another way to keep current on what people are experiencing in my profession. They are dealing with the same issues that I am, so that’s extraordinarily helpful. We are dealing with finding great talent, maximizing our budgets, finding new technologies, and finding what works, so we have a lot in common and a lot to talk about.

BMA: Where is the best way to reach you and your peers? Is it in a B-to-B marketing magazine, in-flight magazine, is it at CNN.com? Where do you turn to get your information and inspiration, and through what medium? Also, in what frame of mind are you most receptive to hearing a message? Is it a Saturday morning when you are not worried about the meeting that you have to be prepared for the next day?

Clement: I do rely on my peers’ conversations for a majority of my information as well as trying to be an astute observer of the marketing that I see. So I am not relying heavily on magazines to learn about a particular marketing topic or on any online subscriptions. I probably read a lot of books on marketing, but the majority of my studies and the way I keep fresh are through BMA and one other organization that I am involved with.

BMA: What is the other organization and do you frequent any other social networking sites?

Clement: The organization is called the M50—it’s the top 50 non-competitive marketers in the world and, obviously, being a member is a really generous claim. Some of the other folks in there are incredible. I mean we have GE, Microsoft, HP, and Coca-Cola, but when you have one of those brands, you can’t have their competitors. So you can’t have Pepsi, and its 50 folks and we get together and talk in-depth about marketing and we have speakers who are very knowledgeable; it is very helpful. It’s for CMOs only. I am also on Facebook and LinkedIn. I do like BtoB magazine; I don’t get a chance to read it as often as I would like, but that’s an enjoyable resource for me.

BMA: Do you ever go to CNN.com or the Wall Street Journal for a broader scope of what is going on?

Clement: Rarely.  We recieve a media summary every morning from my head of PR—that’s probably where I get a lot of my news. I do read hard copies of WSJ and the Financial Times but not every day.

BMA: Did BMA help influence or help to give you confidence that competing for the Manchester United sponsorship was the right thing to do?

Clement: Yes, there are a number of fellow members and people on the board who have spoken at the luncheons and who are very active in sports sponsorships. So while our firm had not been involved, I felt that through our great speakers I had a deep understanding of sports sponsorships. Eventually, those speakers became personal friends and they would bring up topics of sports sponsorship that I could then bring up in private conversation, so it was very helpful.

BMA: You said that marketing is magical, brings an organization to life, and helps people know who they are and what their mission is. Obviously, it’s something that you are very passionate about. At what point did you wake up and say, I want to go into marketing? And what is it that inspires you about marketing?

Clement: It was another BMA presentation. I always had a tendency toward marketing but up to that point, I also had my foot in strategy, sales and general business development. I would say that Beth Comstock’s presentation about what she was doing at GE made me feel very comfortable and wildly enthusiastic about contributing and helping to lead an organization through marketing. I hadn’t seen many practical examples of the impact a CMO could have and I feel Beth’s work at GE has been remarkable and core to GE’s success.  This was marketing that was truly strategic and up until that time, I might have felt the need for my next role to include sales and or strategy role.

BMA: Imagine that a senior marketer or CEO, who is not a BMA member and who doesn’t want to be one, is standing in front of you. What would you say to bring out the value of BMA membership—what is the elevator speech?

Clement: Look, BMA has been extraordinarily helpful to me, I have met some amazing professionals, and it has become part of my trusted network. I learn a ton and get great ideas and I find those ideas to be incredibly practical in the application of my work. I would say that 95 percent of my involvement in BMA has been through the Chicago chapter, though.

BMA: Is anything else on your mind that you think is worth adding?

Clement: I think I probably go to 10 luncheons a year, an event every month, and when you are that busy and committed to a community, fundamentally it’s because there are people there you want to see and talk to. That is one of the reasons why I have been very committed to the organization. If you don’t have that sense of collegiality, if you don’t have people who are genuinely helpful and who are your friends, you’re not going to put the time in.

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