At the high level, any of these might work. I agree that the consolidation and rethinking of Marketing, PR and Communications is something whose time has come.
Within each of these scenarios is the opportunity for optimization and, unfortunately, new siloes. Any org thinking this through for themselves would profit from setting up three separate workgroups to create strawmen, then come together again for the hash-out to see which (or other) works best for their needs…..I guess that's the consultant in me looking for consensus and the appropriate solution!

Great forward-thinking….now I have even MORE to chew on over the weekend….

Tac,

You're right — we're living at a very exciting time!

At first glance, I really like the third option that you proposed, where marketing jobs would be aligned along integration points. I'm a firm believer in the importance of dialogue; that empowering everyone results in better collective ideas and, therefore, better solutions.

On the other hand, I have a feeling that many people would say I'm being idealistic. If an organization was structured in this way, integrating of feedback from many different groups throughout its business processes, at some point it would likely affect the organization's efficiency. I think the challenge would be to know when enough feedback was enough; to move on to the next task.

So I guess I'm not really taking a stance here — just sharing some thoughts as well. Great post, though! Definitely thought provoking.

I used to think a lot about these kind of organizational/reporting issues…short version on my current view is that I think these decisions matter less than I thought. New view is that the most important thing is for everyone in the business have a shared understanding and agreement regarding the basic principles/goals of the organization [irrespective of what silo or business function they are in]

Of course, drastic changes in org structure/reporting can definitely be effective. I think any of the ideas you outline could work depending on circumstance and how clear the vision of the leadership is

Thanks Jeff. I agree that any of these could work. I almost think which one works depends on the overall company strategy and culture. Don't have any specifics yet, but that's what I'm leaning towards right now.

It's going to be a challenge Emily for sure, but the organizations that figure it out are going to reap a lot of rewards for their effort. Thanks for sharing.

Ethan, I completely agree that the most important thing is a shared understanding and agreement but inside large corporations I don't think it's enough. When people are stuck in their silo's they usually don't even know what opportunities for alignment exist let alone have the time in the day to drive forward with them. I still believe that fundamentally something about the organizations structure and communication flow needs to change to make this happen. Maybe like Emily I'm still to idealistic but I really think there's a huge opportunity here for the right companies to take advantage of it.

Yes your point about “not knowing what opps there are for alignment”
is the fundamental thing for sure…

Theoretically there is some enterprise collab tool that solves this

I told the Aardvark peeps that they should license their tech for use
inside the firewall, that would be killin

Anyhoo probably a combination of better comms and reorg would help but
as I said my opinion du jour is that better comms is probably more
effective than reorg

“fwiw” as they say