You know who they are.
The stellar marketers, whose names and faces so often grace these pages, are ubiquitous. They excel at their day jobs, they lead the industry, are natural networkers and can be found at any or all of the elite marketing clubs.
If that is a recipe for professional success, the art is in knowing which ingredients to add first, and in what quantities. Being successful within, and on behalf of, your own organisation is crucial, yet the marketing-industry leader who does not acknowledge the value of judicious networking is, by definition, impossible to find.
Where should the rising marketing star begin when it comes to effective networking? The motivations, methods and forums have changed, even in the relatively short time since today's senior marketers attained their status. However, the overall hierarchy of marketing's clubs and societies remains largely unchanged.
At the head of the networking table sit the grand old four: by age, the Thirty Club, established in 1906; Women In Advertising and Communications London, or WACL (1923); the Solus Club (1929) and the Marketing Group of Great Britain, or MGGB (1975).
Alongside them are to be found the more-inclusive Marketing Society, the event arms of the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA), the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) and myriad trade associations, the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) on a rare night off from studying, and the gowned City Livery Company, The Worshipful Company of Marketors.
At the young, and some might say fun, end of the table is a transitory mix of intellectual verve, special interest and self-interest, and downright frivolity. An exhaustive list is impossible, but the spectrum runs from the Royal Society of Arts at one end, through agencies' own events series, such as Grey's Citrus or the Albion Club, to the gastronomic Bladdered Again or Meat Club.
Before you dive headlong into this networking circus, however, a word of warning. 'When you network, you have to be purposeful. You don't want to be a contagious social disease,' says Clare Sheikh, group director of strategy marketing and customer at insurance company RSA and a non-executive director of Alliance Trust.
Value of mentors
A member of WACL and MGGB and Fellow of The Marketing Society, Sheikh's advice to younger marketers attempting to navigate the best networking opportunities is simple - get someone else to do it for you.
'Do your own job well, then find a mentor,' says Sheikh, who has identified marketing stars from within her own team and taken them along to MGGB or WACL events as her guest - a sure-fire short cut to the elite dining clubs.
Mentoring, whether given or received, is for some the more acceptable face of modern networking. Indeed, Amanda Mackenzie, chief marketing officer at Aviva and a member of MGGB and WACL, says: 'Women shy away from the notion of networking.'
Cilla Snowball is group chairman and chief executive of AMV Group by day and member of the Thirty Club, WACL and president of MGGB by night. Remarkably, then, she also professes to 'hate the word networking' and, alongside Mackenzie and a host of other industry luminaries, gives time to mentor emerging talent on The Marketing Academy's scholarship programme.
The received wisdom, at least from these three senior marketers, is that the elite dining clubs are not the be-all and end-all of industry networking, and that those individuals who do not have the guiding hand of a mentor may benefit from forging their own path.
'Marketing clubland is UK-centric and full of earnest marketers talking about marketing issues, when there may be a tidal wave happening in your own industry,' says Sheikh. She advocates a mix of sector-specific associations and alternative groups, which, for her, include the Financial Services Forum, Royal Society of Arts and Asia House.
Justin Basini, chief executive of data-protection service Allow and former head of marketing at Capital One, takes the DIY approach a step further. 'Create connections around your areas of interest; they will add unbelievable value that the old order simply cannot match,' he advises.
Digital options
The website Conservation-economy.org was created by Basini and a group of marketers and planners, predicated on a shared interest in marketing and communications in an economy not based on consumption. The forum exists as an online debate as well as a quarterly live event and is, says Basini, the most intellectually stimulating group he attends.
Basini blogs, uses Twitter and has a long tail of marketing media groups attached to his LinkedIn profile. In common with other senior marketers, however, he believes that social media facilitates genuine networking rather than replaces it.
'Online networking allows you to share your own ideas and to filter the best of your connections' contributions. It helps you to look after your personal franchise in the digital space,' says Basini.
However, with Sheikh condemning a surfeit of time spent on LinkedIn as 'displacement activity' and The Marketing Society's chief executive, Hugh Burkitt, arguing that the digital age makes human contact all the more important, the prospect of Facebook replacing face-to-face networking looks distant.
Best for professional support
No one gets far into a description of WACL without using the word 'supportive', and for that it stands apart from the other main dining clubs (it describes itself as a 'professional support network'). While its monthly, mixed-audience dinners constitute its main activity, WACL's activity spans training, mentoring and charity fundraising. The all-female membership is drawn from the top ranks of advertising, media and marketing. Ingeniously, the organisation has addressed the 'too exclusive' charge by collaborating with Bloom - a more youthful, all-female club established last year, which is now a sisterly satellite to WACL.
Best for status
The elite dining clubs are not secret but, with between 30 and 200 by-invitation-only members, neither do they self-promote (only WACL has a website).
The Thirty Club is the smallest, most select and serious. The Solus Club (which has a male membership, although all dinner audiences are mixed) is the most light-hearted.
Marketing's Little Black Book dinners, sponsored by Publicis, are invitation-only events for senior marketers featured in The Little Black Book. The dinners, which take place four times a year, are held under the Chatham House Rule.
Of them all, MGGB is most weighted toward brand marketers, and currently recognised as 'youngest' and 'most powerful' by anonymous sources with multiple club memberships.
MGGB president Cilla Snowball stresses the club's emphasis on 'addressing today's business challenges' - making its club membership the one to covet.
Best for the bigger picture
Three letters - RSA - are increasingly common on marketers' stated groups and interests, with a high proportion of Fellows from our industry. The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, to give its full name, is not able to specify how many, but event attendees estimate that up to 20% of any audience is accounted for by marketing and communications professionals. Why? Reasons given include 'eclectic and reflective, not didactic', 'melding of public, private and political agendas' and the RSA's excellent outbound communications. The latter include the RSA Journal, online and RSAnimate - its speeches brought to life through online animation.
Best for scope
The Marketing Society, with a cross-industry membership of 2500 and ownership of the biggest single networking event in the marketing calendar (its annual dinner), offers a range of benefits. Prospective members must have five years' marketing experience, after which membership and certain events are tiered into Executive, Business Leader and invitation-only Fellow levels. Whether you're in Scotland, interested in digital or green issues, or into golf, there is a Society event somewhere virtually every week. There is a higher purpose to all that The Marketing Society does, summed up as 'inspiring bolder marketing leadership', which at times places it in the same spectrum as the trade associations. ISBA, the IPA (particularly via its 44 Club) and the CIM all have events programmes worthy of investigation, although none has the coverage of The Marketing Society's.