You've just been appointed as chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Marketing - how do you think the organisation needs to change over the next five years?

Peter Fisk:We have a clear vision to be the world's leading professional body in marketing and within that we recognise that there are some significant challenges in terms of moving from where we are to where we want to be. Over the next five years we need to move from being an organisation focused on junior marketers through to all marketers. From being an organisation focused on professional qualifications to also being about the latest and best practice, and to move from a UK organisation to a more international one.

Is marketing under threat in a tough economy?

Peter Fisk: Marketing is often an early casualty in a downturn, an easy discretionary budget to cut or delay. However, this was always a short-sighted view. Marketing is crucial to sustain income in the longer term. Marketing also drives the longer-term actions which investors look for when choosing where to place their money. A downturn is a great time to raise the competitive game, to seize opportunities first, to build a strong business model for the upturn.

How effectively do you think marketing is used in the UK economy compared to other international economies?

Peter Fisk: In terms of the UK economy, I would say that it is operating at six out of ten in terms of its capacity. The reasons for coming to that conclusion stem from a series of research I conducted with my previous company, PA Consulting, which shows how marketers are usually managing two of the four Ps from the traditional four Ps of marketing. The things we are not particularly good at include managing price and distribution, whilst we are doing well in communication and product. If you add to this research that quantifies how effectively marketing drives shareholder value, then marketers are driving three times more value for a business than anything else. So marketers have a tremendous opportunity to improve the economy overall, more than any other business activity.

Political parties are losing members and politics in general is attracting increasing apathy - how should politicians and political parties better market themselves?

Peter Fisk:By following basic principles of marketing. First of all thinking about who is the target audience they want to address and how to reach them. Once they've targeted people and understood their needs and issues, then look at what they have in terms of their policies and how they can be relevant to the audiences they wish to address.

Marketing is a matching process between the issues of your audience and the things you believe in terms of your ideology. Each party hopefully has different ideologies, different policies, different products, if you like, on their shelf. The challenge is to ensure that these are issue-driven, and so articulated as clear, concise, and compelling propositions to their target audience. However, all political parties seem pretty poor in terms of the way they articulate and implement these currently.

The Government spends a great deal in advertising its projects and initiatives and there is a major budget for promoting specific departments and units within governments - what's your assessment of the government's marketing and branding strategy?

Peter Fisk:I think they have taken steps forward to see how they can create specific identities for the different parts of this government in language that is more relevant to the public. And the way in which they communicate the messages behind those identities that I believe are in an increasingly audience friendly language.

If you look behind what the government is doing then it's also quite interesting to look at the research role of Philip Gould, with the government and the Labour party, with the emphasis they put on focus groups and continuous polling.

They really test what audiences want to hear and how effective their messages are. These are all good marketing disciplines - whether you like the messages or not. It reflects a sensible marketing based approach, provided of course that the product then lives up to the message. Otherwise, the cries of "spin" become justified.

We hear how Tottenham Hotspur has just won a legal battle for the name Tottenham. What do you make of these legal tussles for names - is this going to be a common feature of the future?

Peter Fisk:Brands are "big ideas". They reflect a purpose, a passion, an ambition. They reflect people and what people want to be. The Tottenham case is a bit like a celebrity, where their name starts to become a brand in its own right. Consider Jamie Oliver, who reflects a whole style of cookery and even an attitude to life, which has been used effectively for books and TV supermarket endorsements.

The same applies to other personality "brands" such as David Beckham. If somebody has built an identity around a name, which becomes common vocabulary to represent an idea that is more valuable than someone else using that name for another reason, then it is something of value and worth protecting. The same applies to Tottenham Hotspur. The equity built up within its reputation for football, and within the loyalty of its fan base, is of enormous value and worthy of protection.

How should marketers address concerns about business transparency and ethics?

Peter Fisk:These are high on the business public's minds following the scandals of Enron, Xerox, and WorldCom. It also links to the drive towards greater corporate social responsibility. From a marketing perspective, businesses need to ensure that their messages are open and honest, that their brands reflect these motivations, and that they build trust and integrity with all stakeholders.