Why the Club Sandwich Marketing Model Fails
The club sandwich marketing model involves gathering people from cross-functional teams to sit around, eat club sandwiches, and consider how we will do business differently.
Everybody sits around and says hey, we should regroup on that next week for another 5 1/2-hour meeting. It doesn’t work. I’ve seen it fail every time.
How do you know? Well, I have seen it repeatedly at IBM, large ERP enterprise software companies, and SUN Microsystems, among others, where consensus management prevails.
The Club Sandwich Marketing Model
How to Build a Better Approach
I. Introduction
Imagine a team of bright, cross-functional professionals gathered in a conference room, indulging in club sandwiches while brainstorming ideas.
They laugh, share stories, and propose ambitious plans. Before long, someone suggests another meeting next week to finalize these ideas. As time passes, meetings pile up, yet the ambitious plans never come to fruition. Welcome to the Club Sandwich Marketing Model.
This well-intentioned approach, characterized by routine gatherings and prolonged deliberations, is a common business trap. While it aims to foster collaboration and inclusivity, it often results in inefficiency, wasted time, and stifled innovation.
This report explores why the Club Sandwich Marketing Model consistently fails and proposes actionable strategies for improving the effectiveness and agility of marketing collaboration.
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II. The Origins and Appeal of the Club Sandwich Marketing Model
The Club Sandwich Marketing Model stems from a desire to break down silos and encourage cross-functional collaboration. In traditional corporate structures, teams often operate in isolation, leading to misaligned goals and fragmented strategies.
Bringing everyone together for brainstorming sessions—complete with food to foster camaraderie—seemed like a logical solution.
Perceived Benefits:
- Breaking Down Silos: Encourages team members from different departments to share perspectives.
- Inclusivity: Ensures every voice is heard in the decision-making process.
- Structure: Provides a formalized space for collaboration.
While the intent is noble, the execution often falters. The allure of routine and structure can overshadow the need for agility and decisive action.
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III. Why the Club Sandwich Marketing Model Fails
Despite its appeal, the Club Sandwich Marketing Model repeatedly falls short.
The Club Sandwich Marketing Model, often characterized by stacking multiple layers of marketing strategies and channels, tends to fall short in small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) for several reasons.
This model, which assumes a “more is better” approach by piling on various campaigns, technologies, and touchpoints, can quickly overwhelm SMBs’ resources and fail to deliver sustainable growth.
Here’s why it struggles in this context:
1. Resource Constraints
SMBs typically operate with limited budgets, personnel, and time, making it challenging to effectively manage the layered complexity of a club sandwich marketing approach. Each “layer”—social media, email marketing, SEO, or paid advertising—requires dedicated resources for execution, monitoring, and optimization.
SMBs risk spreading themselves too thin without sufficient bandwidth, which can lead to poorly executed campaigns that fail to produce meaningful results.
2. Lack of Clear Prioritization
The Club Sandwich Model often lacks a focused strategy, encouraging businesses to invest in multiple marketing activities without clear prioritization simultaneously.
SMBs, unlike larger organizations, cannot afford to experiment with numerous untested channels or campaigns at once. This scattershot approach dilutes impact, making it harder to determine which channels deliver value and which are draining resources.
3. Complexity and Integration Challenges
Layering multiple marketing strategies assumes seamless integration between tools, channels, and data systems—something that is often a struggle for SMBs.
Many lack the technical expertise or tools to integrate platforms effectively, leading to siloed operations, inefficiencies, and missed opportunities to leverage cross-channel insights.
This complexity can result in wasted time and effort, as SMBs cannot realize the synergies the model promises.
4. Misalignment with SMB Goals
The Club Sandwich Model often emphasizes breadth rather than depth, which can be counterproductive to SMBs’ primary objectives of building strong customer relationships and achieving measurable ROI.
SMBs benefit more from focused, personalized campaigns that directly address their target audience’s needs than broad, multi-layered strategies that may not resonate with their niche markets. Overcomplicating their approach risks alienating their core customer base.
5. Difficulty in Measuring ROI
With so many layers in play, it becomes difficult to attribute success to any one channel or tactic. SMBs typically rely on immediate and clear ROI to justify their marketing spend, but the Club Sandwich Model creates a fog of data that makes pinpointing effectiveness nearly impossible.
This lack of clarity can lead to frustration and a perception that marketing efforts are not yielding tangible benefits.
The Club Sandwich Marketing Model fails in SMBs because it assumes a level of resources, technical sophistication, and strategic focus that smaller businesses often lack.
Instead, SMBs thrive with a more targeted and agile approach that prioritizes simplicity, measurable outcomes, and customer-centric strategies.
By focusing on fewer, well-executed marketing channels that align with their goals and audience, SMBs can achieve sustainable growth without the complexity and inefficiency of the Club Sandwich Model.

Below are the key reasons for its failure:
A. Lack of Actionable Outcomes
Meetings become a breeding ground for ideas, but without clear follow-through, these ideas remain theoretical. Teams often fall into the “regroup next week” mentality, postponing decisions and delaying action. This lack of urgency erodes momentum and diminishes trust in the process.
B. Inefficiency and Time Wastage
Frequent, extended meetings consume valuable time that could be spent executing strategies. According to a recent study, companies lose an estimated $37 billion annually due to unproductive meetings. The Club Sandwich Model contributes significantly to this figure by prioritizing discussion over action.
C. Groupthink and Stagnation
Large group discussions often lead to consensus-driven decision-making, which can dilute bold, innovative ideas. The need to accommodate multiple perspectives can stifle creativity and result in mediocre solutions that fail to differentiate a brand.
D. Agility vs. Bureaucracy
Modern markets demand speed and adaptability. With its reliance on prolonged deliberation and layered approvals, the Club Sandwich Model is ill-equipped to respond to rapidly changing customer needs.
This mismatch between market demands and internal processes can render businesses obsolete.
IV. Signs Your Team Is Stuck in the Club Sandwich Trap

Recognizing the signs of this ineffective model is the first step toward breaking free.
Here are some common indicators:
- Recurring Meetings with Little Progress: Teams repeatedly discuss the same issues without reaching resolutions.
- Over-Reliance on Consensus: Decisions are delayed until every team member agrees, slowing progress.
- Frustration Among Team Members: Employees express dissatisfaction with the lack of direction and actionable outcomes.
- Misaligned Metrics: Success is measured by the number of meetings attended rather than the results achieved.
V. How to Break Free: Building a Better Model for Collaborative Marketing
To escape the Club Sandwich Marketing Model, businesses must adopt more effective and agile approaches. Below are actionable strategies for fostering productive collaboration:
A. Establish Clear Objectives and Accountability
Every meeting should have a defined purpose and measurable outcomes. Assign specific tasks and deadlines to individuals to ensure follow-through. For example:
- Define Goals: Identify what success looks like for each project.
- Assign Ownership: Designate task owners who are accountable for execution.
- Track Progress: Use project management tools to monitor completion.
B. Limit the Meeting Overhead
Reduce the frequency and duration of meetings to reclaim valuable time. Replace lengthy discussions with shorter, focused sessions. Utilize asynchronous tools like Slack, Trello, or Notion to share updates and brainstorm ideas without disrupting workflows.
C. Foster an Outcome-Oriented Culture
Shift the focus from collaboration for its own sake to achieving tangible results. Encourage teams to prioritize risk-taking and quick execution over exhaustive deliberation. Recognize and reward outcomes rather than effort.
D. Utilize Agile Marketing Principles
Adopt agile methodologies to enhance flexibility and responsiveness. Agile marketing focuses on iterative processes, enabling teams to test ideas, gather feedback, and refine real-time strategies. Key practices include:
- Sprints: Short, time-boxed periods focused on specific goals.
- Daily Standups: Brief check-ins to address obstacles and align efforts.
- Retrospectives: Reviews to identify successes and areas for improvement.
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VI. Case Studies: Success Beyond the Club Sandwich Model
A Tech Company’s Agile Transformation
A leading technology firm abandoned its traditional collaboration model and favored agile marketing.
By reducing meeting times by 50% and implementing two-week sprints, the company launched 30% more campaigns annually and increased revenue by 20%.
Retail Brand’s Autonomous Teams
A global retail brand empowered small, autonomous teams to drive innovation.
With fewer approvals, the brand reduced product launch times by 40%, allowing it to respond quickly to market trends.
A Startup’s Productivity Boost
A startup eliminated unnecessary meetings and adopted asynchronous communication tools.
This shift led to a 30% increase in productivity and faster time-to-market for new products.
VII. The Role of Leadership in Driving Change
Leadership plays a pivotal role in transitioning away from the Club Sandwich Model.
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) plays a critical role in driving organizational change by leveraging their unique position at the intersection of strategy, customer insights, and innovation. As the customer’s voice and the brand’s steward, the CMO ensures that change initiatives align with market demands and organizational goals.
Their ability to interpret shifts in consumer behavior and market trends allows them to anticipate and adapt to disruptions, ensuring that the company remains competitive and relevant.
One of the CMO’s primary responsibilities in driving change is creating a compelling vision for the future that aligns with the brand’s identity and the organization’s strategic goals.
The CMO inspires confidence and commitment across the organization by articulating how change initiatives—whether related to digital transformation, new product launches, or customer experience enhancements—will deliver value to customers and stakeholders.
This vision must be communicated internally and externally, ensuring that employees, partners, and customers understand and support the change direction.
The CMO also plays a pivotal role in fostering a culture of innovation and agility. In an era of rapidly evolving markets, adapting and experimenting is essential. The CMO leads by example, encouraging teams to embrace new technologies, marketing strategies, and creative approaches.
By fostering collaboration across departments—such as sales, product development, and customer service—they ensure that change initiatives are implemented holistically and effectively. This collaborative approach drives alignment and ensures that customer insights are integrated at every stage of the change process.
Lastly, the CMO measures the success of change initiatives through clear metrics and data-driven insights. By setting key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with business objectives, they track the impact of changes on customer engagement, brand perception, and revenue growth.
They also remain flexible, refining strategies and addressing challenges using real-time data. The CMO drives change and builds a foundation for continuous improvement, ensuring the organization is equipped to thrive in an ever-changing marketplace.

Here’s how leaders can drive meaningful change:
A. Setting the Tone
Leaders must model the behaviors they want to see. They can inspire teams to do the same by prioritizing efficiency and action.
B. Redefining Success
Shift the narrative around success from collaboration as an end goal to achieving meaningful outcomes. Highlight stories of successful execution and celebrate results.
C. Supporting Cross-Functional Teams
Provide teams with the tools and autonomy they need to succeed. This includes investing in technology to streamline collaboration and reduce bureaucratic barriers hindering progress.
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A modern management system designed to foster innovation in the marketing department is built on agility, collaboration, and data-driven decision-making principles. In an era where customer preferences and market dynamics shift rapidly, traditional hierarchical structures often hinder creativity and adaptability. By adopting a more fluid and responsive management approach, marketing teams can continuously innovate and remain competitive.
Agility is at the core of modern marketing management systems. Agile methodologies, originally developed for software development, have been increasingly adopted by marketing teams to enable faster iterations and adaptive strategies.
These systems prioritize flexibility, allowing teams to pivot quickly based on real-time feedback and market data. For example, marketing departments can use agile sprints to test, analyze, and refine smaller initiatives instead of launching large, inflexible campaigns. This iterative process fosters innovation and reduces the risk of significant failures by allowing continuous improvement.
Collaboration and cross-functional integration are pivotal in generating new ideas and solutions. A modern system encourages open communication between marketing, sales, product development, and customer service teams to ensure that insights from diverse perspectives inform marketing strategies.
Tools like collaborative platforms and regular brainstorming sessions break down silos and create a fertile ground for creativity. For instance, marketers can gain insights from customer service about common pain points and use those to craft messaging or campaigns that directly address customer needs, driving innovation and effectiveness.
Finally, data-driven innovation forms the backbone of modern marketing systems. Advanced analytics and AI-powered tools provide marketing departments with actionable insights into customer behavior, campaign performance, and market trends. This data-driven approach allows marketers to experiment confidently, knowing their strategies are informed by evidence rather than intuition.
Modern management systems encourage predictive analytics and A/B testing to validate ideas and prioritize those with the highest potential for success. By coupling creativity with data, marketing teams can consistently innovate in ways that resonate with their audience and deliver measurable results.
In summary, a modern management system for marketing innovation combines agility, collaboration, and data-centricity to create an environment where new ideas can thrive. By embracing these principles, marketing departments can respond to changing market conditions, harness collective intelligence, and deliver innovative campaigns aligned with business objectives.
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VIII. Conclusion
While rooted in good intentions, the Club Sandwich marketing model is outdated and fails to deliver results in today’s fast-paced business environment.
By recognizing its shortcomings and adopting more agile, outcome-oriented strategies, businesses can unlock the full potential of their teams.
It’s time to rethink collaboration. Challenge your organization to prioritize action over discussion, results over effort, and agility over bureaucracy. True innovation doesn’t happen around the conference table; it happens when teams are empowered to act, learn, and iterate.
The choice is clear: abandon the Club Sandwich Model and embrace a better way forward. Your business’s future depends on it.
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