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Much like packaging, logistics and maintenance, repair and operations (MRO), the marketing spend category straddles the boundary between direct and indirect. And we all know that it has a substantial impact on sales and revenue — allegedly, at least. The reality is that, while every marketing dollar spent can have a huge impact if spent appropriately, the direct commercial impact is notoriously difficult to assess, and the value per dollar spent even more difficult to quantity. However, organizations can no longer afford to ignore this “sacred spend cow” category, as every dollar spent needs to count in an inflationary market. Marketing needs procurement to squeeze every penny of value out of agency spend to not just lower total costs but also maximize revenue uplift and brand enhancement. However, this won’t happen as long as a moat separates procurement from marketing. Thus, in this series, we have distilled the approaches and practices we’ve seen adopted by leading practitioners and present a step-by-step plan to help procurement gain marketing’s ear, trust and support in helping marketing manage its spend for maximum performance. In this first installment, we break down why you need to walk the walk, talk the talk, get educated and “live the marketing life” — all of which should help loosen marketing’s drawbridge and ease it down across that moat.