A week ago I was having dinner with a good friend Thera at a restaurant in Place Plumerau, a beautiful square in the centre of Tours. It was a warm evening, we were surrounded by stunning buildings, a jazz band was playing, and a couple of waiters were entertaining the crowds by seeing who could run the fastest around the square with two beers on a tray. Basically all good!
Apparently not for everyone. Our neighbours were a Belgian couple – and for the entire dinner they did not utter a word to each other. She was too busy staring at her split ends (45 minutes) followed by staring at her cuticles (remaining 45 minutes). He was showing such interest in his mobile phone, we were quite sure he would end up kissing it before the end of the dinner.
What does this have to do with businesses and passion? Well, as I was looking at them I started to think about all the people I know, or have met, who are with someone they don’t want to be with, or are somewhere they don’t want to be, or doing something they don’t want to do.
Think about it. How many people do you know involved in business who love what they do (note I said love, not like, not think it’s OKish, but love!)? A few days later, sitting by the lake at Château la Vallière, I asked Thera that precise question. Her answer was “Two, actually no, now that you’re doing this fluid world, three”.
It’s an incredibly low figure, and although many of you will state a higher one, I wonder if it will be significantly higher.
This is a massive problem for the business world because I don’t believe you can be passionate if you don’t do something you love. I don’t believe you can be passionate if you’re somewhere you don’t want to be? And finally, I don’t believe you, and therefore organisations, can excel without passion and therefore I don’t believe companies can thrive without passion (thrive that is, not just get by)! Hence the problem!
Passion does much more than allow people to excel, passion breaks down barriers.
It breaks down the ‘we have no money for this’ barrier. Look at the Wright Brothers. They invented the airplane not because of the support of a large team, or because of unlimited resources (they had none of these). No, they succeeded in designing a plane that could fly because they were passionate about the idea of flying! Passionate enough to work night and day, passionate enough to remortgage their house, passionate enough to finally succeed to fly for 12 seconds, this without caring that no-one was there to see it happen!
It breaks down the ‘lets not collaborate’ barrier. We may be closer to a cure for AIDS today if research in this filed was driven by the passion for saving lives, rather than the quest for being the first team to find a cure, and hence reaping the large economic benefits that come with it (this leading to competition rather than collaboration).
It breaks down the ‘mediocre’ barrier. Let’s face it you can go from OK to good, and from good to excellent… but you can never go from OK to excellent. And it’s unlikely that you will ever be good, or excellent, at something you’re not passionate about. Just ask top athletes (well, excluding certain European football teams), just ask 1st class musicians, just ask extraordinary business people if they have passion for, if they love what they do? And I can guarantee you the answer will be yes, with capital letters!
I challenge you to find any corporate problem that can’t be solved, in one way or another, directly or indirectly through passionate people!
One of the greatest compliments I ever received was given to myself and Jonathan (my business partner in this fluid world) after delivering one of our learning & development programmes. It came from one of the older participants “You have reminded me of why I work in advertising, once upon a time I loved it, and I’m finding that again”.
This should be the role of organisations, to find, encourage, harness and reward passion!
I don’t think there’s an excuse for not being somewhere you love, or not doing something you love (at least for a big chunk of the week). I don’t think there’s an excuse for an organisation not to do everything in their power to create an environment where people want to be, and where they, for at least a significant part of the day, do something they want to do, something they love, something they are passionate about.
So if you rather stare at your phone, your split ends, or your cuticles, I think it’s time for you to seriously question what you do, and where you do it…and well…just stop doing it!
What can I say; I’m with Blackberry on this one ‘Do What You Love, Love What You Do’. I would only add one thing to that, and that is do it TODAY! I know it’s not easy to find IT, or to transition, but I can promise you that at the end of that journey awaits Excellence (spelt with a large E, like Tom Peters likes it)! And if you manage an organisation, or a team make sure you are your people’s IT, as that is the only way you will ever benefit from some of their Excellence!
I’ve been asked to speak at a panel at EGR Live (eGaming Review brand) covering the topic ‘Marketing on a shoestring budget’. My role on this panel is as ‘someone who knows about social media’… and it got me thinking.
Everyone loves seeing an underdog make it. And in marketing land an underdog is someone with little or no budget. So when Paranormal Activity, a movie with a production budget of $10,000 and no marketing budget, makes it into American theatres through an active approach to social media, we pay attention, we pay attention and we want some of that magic too!!!
I love stories like this, but I fear that it gives people the wrong impression of the role that digital and social media should play in marketing.
Marketing does not = advertising, we must therefore look at marketing from a broader perspective
The main reaction marketers have when they think of marketing on a shoestring budget is free advertising, and the solution to this is social media and SEO.
This is a limited view of marketing. If, as a marketer, you truly want to decrease marketing cost you MUST look at marketing from a broader perspective. If, as a marketer, you truly want to be part of the social media tidal wave you MUST look at the role digital and social media can, and should play, in the entire marketing mix.
Some companies are getting this right, and ‘qu’elle surprise’, they are also the same companies we keep reading about in the trade press and hearing about at conferences. The reason they’re such success stories is because they do NOT look at social media as a way of decreasing advertising budget, they look at social media (and with this I mean the power of people) as something that can affect their entire marketing mix. Let me give you some examples, and I know you will be familiar with these.
Product development: LEGO with its software ‘Design By Me’ allowing people to design their very own custom made LEGO sets
Price: Open Source Foundation with its promise of being better quality, higher reliability, more flexible at a lower cost
Distribution: Kogi BBQ has several trucks serving Korean food in LA and uses twitter to tell its customers where they can find their van’s each day
Promotion: (the aforementioned) Paranormal Activity
And finally Zappos, a company who gets it right throughout the value chain, has during the past 10 years grown from almost no sales to more than $1 billion in annual gross merchandise sales. This has been achieved primarily by repeat customers and word of mouth.
These are all examples of excellent marketing, and in some cases of advertising on a shoestring budget!
Create an army of fanatics
There is another thing these companies have in common; they have what Jonathan MacDonald, my business partner at this fluid world, refers to as an army of fanatics supporting them. An army of fanatics are people that produce and create for you, talk about you, promote you, sell your products, and in tough times defend you!
Shift marketing investment to earlier stages of the value chain
When we at this fluid world work with organisations that are looking at decreasing their marketing budget (often through social media), we recommend that they shift their investment to an earlier stage of the value chain, in addition to focusing their attention on creating an army of fanatics, rather than on how to advertise as cheaply as possible. Why? Because we know that this will save organisations money across the board.
We recommend:
They tap into the zeitgeist “the spirit of the times”, soak themselves in the cultural and spiritual climate, live breathe and eat what people do, think and talk about
That they create extreme value, be it in utility, convenience, enablement, connectivity, coolness or reward; within and around everything they do. This can only be achieved if stage one is taken seriously, and done well
After having created something extremely valuable make sure it’s ultra findable. The distance between inspiration and satisfaction must be reduced toward instantaneous. Be everywhere! Yes this is where search comes in – but only as a part of it
And finally make sure it’s super shareable. It seems such an easy concept but the efficiencies of distribution become significant when people who like something can share it with others. The ‘viral’ campaigns we see working best are those that have an instant way of sharing between people. This accelerates the advocacy effect of armies of fanatics
Gaming is all about armies of fanatics
As you can imagine, creating an army of fanatics is easier said than done, especially if you’re in the business of selling sugar water or you are, for example, an energy company…
But if you’re reading this and you’re in gaming, than you’re incredibly lucky because you’re in an industry that by nature is made up of fanatics! People who game love gaming, people who game breathe gaming! You already have the army of fanatics to tap into by default. They are there, waiting to connect waiting to play (literally!).
So what does that mean to you? It means that your job is to make them YOUR army of fanatics!
Look at Zynga, the makers of FarmVille, and FishVille, with 230 million users each month (using a limited advertising budget) and Mafia Wars with its 12,104,521 facebook fans (as of 2nd of June 2010). These are games that have created and tapped into fanatical armies at great success!
This, by the way, requires following the same recommendations outlined above. Gaming is the perfect environment for a brand to create THEIR army of fanatics, and for social media marketing to prove itself in every part of the marketing mix.
If the gaming industry gets it right, I believe it could do to social media marketing what porn did to the Internet – accelerate its success!
And for whoever does this well, it will be game, set and match!
If you work in an agency, or for a brand, chances are that you are trying to get your head around digital. Be it how to use it, integrate it, build brands with it, avoid the threats caused by it… or how to make money from it.
To many digital is the hope of a threatened industry.
To us in this fluid world there’s something wrong with this. To us in this fluid world it seems like the industry is missing a vital point.
Let me explain.
The reason we have major media and creative agencies like Ogilvy, Saatchi, MindShare and OMD is because when commercial TV launched, these agencies figured out how to make money from TV advertising.
The key word is FIGURED OUT not TV advertising. Trust me when I say monetizing TV through advertising was far from an easy task.
These agencies realised that they lived in a time where building name recognition and capturing audience attention was essential to the bottom line. To do this well they invented the focus group, the consumer survey, the direct-mail campaign, I could go on. Why? Because they understood that marketing decisions should be based on research and a solid understanding of the target audience.
Their focus was not on TV as a channel…but on the type of people in front of the TV, the context in which they sat there, the kind of lives they lived, and what made them tick.
By understanding people in this environment, and developing TV advertising, these agencies took one giant step into the future, a step that ensured their economic survival for decades (and a lot of Champaign).
So here we are today with a new challenge, and a new opportunity, in different economic times…desperate to take yet another giant step into the future, a step that we hope will ensure our economic survival for decades to come.
There are a few problems with this.
Digital is broader and more complex than TV, it’s not a channel it’s a lifestyle.
The speed of change and technology guarantees only one thing, and that is that change is continuous.
The conditions we live in today are completely different from what they were a few decades ago when TV advertising was born.
Yet, few seem to be taking the time to FIGURE it out – many however are talking the Mad Men learnings and principles and repurposing them. By doing this they are making the mistake of replacing one channel with another… expecting the same result.
What this industry needs is a new breed of mad men (and I mean mad in its true sense). It needs people mad enough to take the time to figure this out, in the context of today, the tools which we have to outer disposal and the reality in which we, and the people we want to get the attention from, live in.
And unlike the original Mad Men we will not be benefiting from one giant step into the future. The competitive advantage will not come from ‘figuring out how to monetize digital’. The competitive advantage will come from understanding that there will probably never be a giant step into the future…but rather a series of small continuous steps…forever and ever and ever.
By that rational, our job as marketers is to build fluidity into the way we think, do research, produce products and services, communicate, interact and manage our organisation. Our job is to learn, to prepare for change and to be ready for the next big thing.
This is why Jonathan MacDonald and I set up this fluid world. Our goal and mission is to help organisations achieve the necessary flexibility to get their head around, not just digital, but anything else on which the survival of their organisation depends on.
djojsIf you work in an agency, or for a brand, chances are that you are trying to get your head around digital. Be it how to use it, integrate it, build brands with it, avoid the threats caused by it… or how to make money from it.
To many digital is the hope of a threatened industry.
To us in this fluid world there’s something wrong with this. To us in this fluid world it seems like the industry is missing a vital point.
Let me explain.
The reason we have major media and creative agencies like Ogilvy, Saatchi, MindShare and OMD is because when commercial TV launched, these agencies figured out how to make money from TV advertising.
The key word is FIGURED OUT not TV advertising. Trust me when I say monetizing TV through advertising was far from an easy task.
These agencies realised that they lived in a time where building name recognition and capturing audience attention was essential to the bottom line. To do this well they invented the focus group, the consumer survey, the direct-mail campaign, I could go on. Why? Because they understood that marketing decisions should be based on research and a solid understanding of the target audience.
Their focus was not on TV as a channel…but on the type of people in front of the TV, the context in which they sat there, the kind of lives they lived, and what made them tick.
By understanding people in this environment, and developing TV advertising, these agencies took one giant step into the future, a step that ensured their economic survival for decades (and a lot of Champaign).
So here we are today with a new challenge, and a new opportunity, in different economic times…desperate to take yet another giant step into the future, a step that we hope will ensure our economic survival for decades to come.
There are a few problems with this.
Digital is broader and more complex than TV, it’s not a channel it’s a lifestyle.
The speed of change and technology guarantees only one thing, and that is that change is continuous.
The conditions we live in today are completely different from what they were a few decades ago when TV advertising was born.
Yet, few seem to be taking the time to FIGURE it out – many however are talking the Mad Men learnings and principles and repurposing them. By doing this they are making the mistake of replacing one channel with another… expecting the same result.
What this industry needs is a new breed of mad men (and I mean mad in its true sense). It needs people mad enough to take the time to figure this out, in the context of today, the tools which we have to outer disposal and the reality in which we, and the people we want to get the attention from, live in.
And unlike the original Mad Men we will not be benefiting from one giant step into the future. The competitive advantage will not come from ‘figuring out how to monetize digital’. The competitive advantage will come from understanding that there will probably never be a giant step into the future…but rather a series of small continuous steps…forever and ever and ever.
By that rational, our job as marketers is to build fluidity into the way we think, do research, produce products and services, communicate, interact and manage our organisation. Our job is to learn, to prepare for change and to be ready for the next big thing.
This is why Jonathan MacDonald and I set up this fluid world. Our goal and mission is to help organisations achieve the necessary flexibility to get their head around, not just digital, but anything else on which the survival of their organisation depends on.
If you work in an agency, or for a brand, chances are that you are trying to get your head around digital. Be it how to use it, integrate it, build brands with it, avoid the threats caused by it… or how to make money from it.
To many digital is the hope of a threatened industry.
To us in this fluid world there’s something wrong with this. To us in this fluid world it seems like the industry is missing a vital point.
Let me explain.
The reason we have major media and creative agencies like Ogilvy, Saatchi, MindShare and OMD is because when commercial TV launched, these agencies figured out how to make money from TV advertising.
The key word is FIGURED OUT not TV advertising. Trust me when I say monetizing TV through advertising was far from an easy task.
These agencies realised that they lived in a time where building name recognition and capturing audience attention was essential to the bottom line. To do this well they invented the focus group, the consumer survey, the direct-mail campaign, I could go on. Why? Because they understood that marketing decisions should be based on research and a solid understanding of the target audience.
Their focus was not on TV as a channel…but on the type of people in front of the TV, the context in which they sat there, the kind of lives they lived, and what made them tick.
By understanding people in this environment, and designing TV advertising around it, these agencies took one giant step into the future, a step that ensured their economic survival for decades (and a lot of Champagne).
So here we are today with a new challenge, and a new opportunity, in different economic times…and desperate to, via digital, take another giant step into the future, a step that we hope will ensure our economic survival for decades to come.
There are a few problems with this.
Digital is broader and more complex than TV, it’s not a channel it’s a lifestyle.
The speed of change and technology guarantees only one thing, and that is that change is continuous.
The world we live in today is completely different from what it was a few decades ago when TV advertising was born.
Yet few seem to be taking the time to FIGURE it out – many however are talking the Mad Men learnings and principles and repurposing them. By doing this they are making the mistake of simply replacing one channel with another… expecting the same result.
What this industry needs is a new breed of mad men (and I mean mad in its true sense because it wont be easy). It needs people mad enough to take the time to figure this out, in the context of today, the tools which we have to our disposal, and the reality in which we, and the people we want to get the attention from, live in.
And unlike the original Mad Men we will not be benefiting from one giant step into the future. The competitive advantage will not come from ‘figuring out how to monetize digital’. The competitive advantage will come from understanding that there will probably never be a giant step into the future…but rather a series of small continuous steps…forever and ever and ever.
By that rational, our job as marketers is not to ‘figure out digital’, but to figure things out, continuously…How? By building fluidity into the way we think, do research, produce products and services, communicate, interact and manage our organisation. Our job is to learn, to prepare for change and to be ready for the next big thing (or to create it).
This is why Jonathan MacDonald and I set up this fluid world. Our goal and mission is to help organisations achieve the necessary fluidity to get their head around, not just digital, but anything else on which their survival depends on.
Actually nothing mad about that…if I can say so myself.
I had the pleasure last week of seeing a senior representative from a publishing company speak. I say the pleasure because his presentation could not have been more different than what one would expect from an incumbent in a threatened industry.
Not only was it honest, inspiring and realistic, but it left you with some hope that maybe, just maybe there was a future for this company, one based on a willingness to challenge themselves and to innovate.
Innovation is often stopped because of one of the following reasons.
High cost structures prevent investment in areas that do not generate an ROI above a certain size. The first slides in the presentation covered the organisations office move, and described the details around a serious down sizing project. No more plush offices, and today only a third of the size it used to be was not described as a problem but as an opportunity to integrated between departments, to collaborate and to embrace the future.
A focus on the past (especially if it represent ‘the good old times’). It’s rare to listen to someone dismiss any strategy beyond 18 months as pointless due to the pace of change in today’s business world. It’s rare to hear someone discuss how their newly developed purpose statement (or vision) will be irrelevant 12-18 months from now. It’s even more rare to hear someone do so with a confident smile, rare, but incredibly inspiring!
An unwillingness to cannibalise on core products. I was amazed to listen to someone who openly spoke about how their new digital products would decrease the circulation figures of their off-line product (for you who are not in advertising, advertising revenue it dependent on high circulation figures). This is of course not a secret to anyone, but how many are prepared to not only accept it, but to barge ahead under that premise?
The immediate revenue from a new idea is seen as too small compared to the revenue derived from core activities, and is therefore rejected by the incumbent. I saw no sign of this in the presentation, instead relatively modest revenue figures achieved from sales of an app was referred to with the respect that can only come from someone who understands that times are changing.
I had the pleasure last week of listening to a senior representative from a publishing company speak about their digital strategy. I say the pleasure because his presentation could not have been more different than what one would expect from an incumbent in a threatened industry.
Not only was it honest, inspiring and realistic, but it left you with some hope that maybe, just maybe there was a bright future for this company, one based on a willingness to challenge themselves and to innovate.
So why was I so inspired by what I saw?
Change and innovation is on everyone’s lips, innovation appear in many mission statements, change and innovation is a priority for most senior managers…yet change and innovation is rare. Everything I heard during the speech showed how much this department has embraced the need to change, and how much it was working hard at breaking the innovation barrier.
Change through innovation is often stopped because of one of the following reasons.
A high cost structure prevents investment in areas that do not guarantee a revenue above a certain size. It was interesting to see how the first slides in the presentation covered the organisations office move, and described the details around a serious down sizing project. No more plush offices, and a department a third of the size it used to be. This however was not described as a problem but as an opportunity to integrated between departments, to collaborate and to embrace the future.
A focus on the past (especially if it represents ‘the good old times’). It’s rare to hear someone entirely focused on the future. It’s rare to listen to someone dismiss any strategy beyond 18 months as pointless due to the pace of change in today’s business world. It’s rare to hear someone discuss how their newly developed purpose statement (or vision) will be irrelevant 12-18 months down the road. It’s even more rare to hear someone do so with a confident smile, yes rare, but incredibly inspiring!
A fear of cannibalising the core product. I was amazed to listen to someone who openly spoke about how their new digital products would decrease the circulation figure of their off-line product (for you who are not in advertising, advertising revenue it dependent on high circulation figures). This is of course not a secret to anyone, but how many are prepared to not only accept it, but to barge ahead under that premise?
The immediate revenue from a new idea is seen as too small compared to the revenue derived from core activities, and is therefore rejected by the incumbent. I saw no sign of this in the presentation, instead relatively modest revenue figures achieved from sales of an app was referred to with the respect that can only come from someone who understands that times are changing.
Facilitating change and innovation is at the heart of what this fluid world does, and it’s working with, or being exposed to people like this that makes us love what we do.
So to anyone out there busy smashing the present in favour of the future , I say “I can’t wait to see what you build!”
I love high streets. I chose to live in Marylebone because of its particularly lovely high street. I go out of my way to purchase as much as I can from the independent stores there (well from the ones that are left) rather than from chains or on-line, this to show my support, and to ensure their survival.
But lately I’m finding it increasingly hard to buy things from the high street. Which makes me seriously question its future…
Why?
Well; let’s look at it from a basic marketing perspective. Forgive me for using such a simple, and to many outdated model, as the 4 P’s, but hey I’m a 60’s child so for the sake of simplicity I will stick to the 4 P’s rather than debating what should replace them. (The 4 P’s by the way was invented in 1960 by Jerome McCarthy– so I don’t dispute they need a revamp ).
Anyway, back to the high street.
It’s clear that it can’t compete on price. A while ago I went to Selfridges to buy a memory card, and ended up buying one on-line for £50 less. I wanted to buy ink for my printer at Ryman’s, and bought the same ink on-line at a 50% discount.
How about product? I doubt anyone would dispute that when it comes to product range and type, no-one can beat the Internet (especially with the effect of the long-tail and therefore the ability of offering a product even if there are only a few hundred buyers in one place).
Distribution (place) maybe? There is no way a retailer can have a presence everywhere (although some try at a massive cost). So nope the high street does not seem to be able to compete on place either.
As for promotion, I wont even go there as the Internet has most available communication and targeting tools at its disposal, at a relatively small cost.
So what if we extend the 4 P’s and add a service element to it – process (which refers to the systems used to assist the organisation in delivering the service)? A few weeks ago I went to Divertimenti to buy a new filter for my Bialetti espresso maker. They had none in stock and I was told they could order one for me, and call when it arrived. In the spirit of support I chose to accept to wait and said yes. I went back today thinking they must have forgotten to call me. But oh no, the delivery would take 6 weeks. 6 weeks! So I guess it’s a no no to being competitive on process!
So what is the high street retailer doing about this rather serious problem? Well, some offer their own on-line e-commerce facility, or they allow Amazon to power their sales (to overcome the distribution challenge ), they try to put more products in store (range challenge), they slash their prices (price challenge), they pack their windows with sales messages (promotion and advertising challenge)…I could go on… but basically all efforts are ‘me-too’ strategies, and I don’t know about you, but to me trying to compete with the Internet head on seems rather stupid!
One would think that the only way forward is to differentiate. Basically to try to offer something which is not possible to offer on-line. Which brings me to the two remaining P’s of the service marketing mix, (in addition to process) people and physical evidence. These are the two things retailers have today that the Internet does not have. You would think they would use it! And yet finding an original retails space, offering a great experience, populated by people that add value (rather than affect it negatively) is extremely rare now a days.
So who get’s it right outside of the constantly mentioned Apple and Nike stores (with their endless marketing budgets)?!
I suggest a visit to Daunt’s bookstore where the books are categorised by country and not author, and where people serving you actually read books! Make sure you pop by La Fromagerie, a cheese shop that would hold its own next to any French cheese shop, and where the staff can tell you the origin of any cheese. Still hungry? I recommend Mr Biggley’s sausages, made from scratch in his basement – he will tell you all about the art that is sausage making. And just in case you need a button – pop by the Button Queen, there are more buttons there then you know what to do with – and believe it or not, staff that are enthused about – yes buttons!
Or maybe the future will look differently. My business partner in this fluid world Jonathan MacDonald has a very interesting view on where we may be heading!
“In the future, people will pay for human interaction – perhaps we will have toll roads that harbour these interactions – due to the nature of saying ‘hello’, we can call these ‘hi streets’ and we will congregate in Public Urban Boundary Systems (which will be shortened to the word ‘pubs’)”.
I shall now say good bye to you all, and who knows maybe we will meet, sometime in the future… on the ‘hi-street’ or in the ‘pub’!
The Observer published an excellent article today called ‘Democratic, but dangerous too: how the web changed our world’.
It crystalised something that has been bothering me about the Internet, or to be more precise about the way it’s often used in marketing, and therefore the effect it’s having on how we are seen as people.
The article says it so much better than I would, so here it is.
‘The surveillance implications for this [the internet] are clear, but there are wider cultural implications when the money people behind the scenes get their rewards for feeding us exactly what we want. Amazon’s recommendation engine, Last.fm’s social music service, even news sites such as the Huffington Post, reduce the possibility for serendipity by serving up what they think we want, channelling us into a loop of confirmation.’
It seems that in the early years of the Internet it gave people the chance to break away from being able to be put in predefined boxes… and then through our own behaviour, some tracking, some ad and information serving… there we are again, back to being categorized and put into bland boxes.
The author Douglas Rushkoff put this brilliantly when he said: “The more like one of my kind of person I become, the less me I am, and the more I am a demographic type.”
I guess this sounds like a marketer’s dream, a world where we break people down into categories so we can do our job. To me it sounds like we are missing something important.
It feels like marketers are missing the opportunity to really understand me. This has the unfortunate outcome of me having to live in a world where people continuously make assumptions about me. I bought a book about birds, I must be a bird watcher (not so much!). Ignoring the individual means that marketers live in a world where they continuously miss the point of, and the opportunity brought by the Internet.
It also feels like marketers are missing out on the opportunity that comes with randomness….the more people cross fertilise between topics, the more they have their views and opinions challenged, the more they stumble upon different things, the better the quality of their ideas. And in a world of co-creation this is not just relevant to employees, but also to customers. Ignoring this means that marketers live in a world where there is a risk of marketing myopia, not just on a corporate level, but on a social and cultural level, a myopia that could lead to a decrease in the quality of ideas, and therefore also of the products, services and solutions organisations offer.
It also seems that by fixating on what people are doing (and on putting them in boxes), marketers are not paying attention to what they’re NOT doing. In a world that only pays attention to the do’s, all we will achieve as marketers is incremental innovation; rather than radical innovation. Nothing wrong with incremental innovation, but not exactly the key competitive advantage companies should strive for!
I’m not saying the Internet is not a wealth of information and inspiration. It most definitely is! I’m simply stating that the social and cultural risk that come with reinforcing similar behaviour (mainly driven by a wish to control), could mean that rather than capitalising on the paradigm shift caused by the Interenet and going forward, we will start going backward.
A good marketer allows his curiosity to go everywhere (and therefore also the people he interacts with), a good marketer does not just follow people’s behaviour (or competition’s) and act accordingly, they lead the way, often without information or data, a good marketer gives people not only what they want, but also what we need, and what they never knew they wanted…
…but most importantly, a good marketer celebrates individuals and individualism (not boxes)!
Anyone who has worked with a Telco company, or any other organisation in a data driven industry, will recognise the following comments…
…“I will accept cooperation as long as we own the customer”…
…”If we choose this direction, won’t we loose control of the customer?”…
Also, anyone who has been part of a restructuring, or a cost cutting exercise, will have heard management refer to employees as resources. Business’ feel so strongly about this they even named a department after it – Human Resources.
The best thing that could happen to marketing in 2010 is if everyone working in this industry could accept that people, customers, consumers and employees are not a cog in the marketing machinery!
Note: the picture is of Charles Chaplin in the brilliant movie; Modern times from 1936
This however would require a fundamental mind-shift, it would mean that when we go to work we should all remember that…
People can’t be owned People have always had a free mind, and a free will, but now more so than ever. They have the freedom, and the platforms to create, to express, to share, to support and to exclude, but most of all they have the freedom to choose. Simply owning some data and a database does not mean you know the person whose data you manage, it does not mean you own something real, and it definitely does not mean you own that customer!
People can’t be controlled And more importantly why would you want to? What has ever come out of controlling anything, apart from narrow mindedness and marketing myopia? As a matter of fact I would give up the notion of owning anything in today’s marketing world (customers, consumers, brand, IP, employees, ideas….). Not only because you will find it very hard to survive in this business world if you don’t, but because you will miss out on one of the great phenomena of this decade – true collaboration, and this across nations, industries, companies, departments, and disciplines!
People are not resources Human they are, resources not! They are all different, unique, interesting, and if you let them, if you give them the right support, if you create the right environment…they are your best chance of a sustainable competitive advantage! How? Through their ideas, their innovation, their ability to think in a non-linear way, their commitment – it is through all this they will affect NPD, operations, distribution, customer service, marketing and sales. That’s what makes them individuals, that’s what makes them humans and not resources!
So in this world where we focus so much on data, and on resources…let’s remember that what backs it up is people, employees, consumers, customers. Get to know them, for real, respect them, work with them, work for them, allow them to make a difference…and often, very often celebrate them!!!
But whatever you do don’t try to control them, don’t try to own them, and don’t ever think that you do!
Success in business has always been a case of survival of the fittest, fastest, and strongest…and never has this been more true than in today’s evolutionary market.
However, we are observing a concerning trend in solution driven strategy. This is resulting in the creation of, for example, an application or a Facebook campaign as a false substitute for a communications strategy. Or alternatively, a purchase of new technology as a feasible business strategy. These are a few of many examples – you probably know several too!
In reality, what matters today is what has always mattered. Factors such as, the attitude you have to business and risk taking, the corporate culture you foster amongst your team, department and organisation, the way you communicate with citizens, who you work with and what you value.
We discuss this a lot amongst ourselves (and with our clients at this fluid world), and we regularly observe these challenges. However, we rarely see the realisation, let alone the action in these areas, which would ensure a healthy prosperous future for an organisation.
We felt it valuable to create a white paper which contains ten do’s and don’ts that could act as a survival guide in today’s business and communications world.
Our hope is that this document will inspire people to get the basics right, because it’s only upon these foundations that excellent business can be created and nurtured.
Jonathan MacDonald, co-founder of this fluid world, has over the last couple of weeks published some insightful macro trends of the 21st century on his blog. They are a summary of his observations over a period of time and are some the key things that we take into consideration when we help companies understand the evolving communications environment, when assisting these organisations in adding value to their products and services and achieve competitive advantage. None of these ‘Macro Trends’ are exclusive to the 21st Century but all of them are critical to it.
I will say farewell here as I think the trends speak for themselves!
Below is a list of the first 6 macro trends, click on each link to read about them in more detail (enjoy, I know I did, thanks Jonathan! )
A few days ago I had lunch with the very lovely and smart Mike Nutley, Editor-in-chief of New Media Age. Taking a break from his pasta, Mike made a very true statement.
“Most MD’s don’t want to hear that the world is in flux, they don’t want to plan around ‘not knowing’, or around ‘not being sure’.”
I hate to say this… but can you blame them? ‘I’m not sure’ and ‘I don’t know’ is not very helpful when you try to forecast, resource, be profitable, monitor competition and keep The City happy… and it’s really not helpful when you try to write a three, five, seven or ten year plan!
This fragmented and confusing world is even more frightening for anyone running an advertising or media agency. They’ve had it relatively easy for quite some time. If you think about it, any agency that figured out how to do a descent TV ad when TV moved into our living rooms has been able to dine out on that learning for almost half a century! Listening to many of these agencies today it’s clear that they are hoping for a repeat of that performance by taking one giant (digital) leap into the future, and subsequently reap the benefits of that one-off learning and understanding of digital for some time to come.
And again, can you blame them? It sure would make working life easier for a lot of people if that was a possibility!
The truth however is that a company can no longer be in the business of forecasting, of committing to certain results, of ensuring specific ROI’s, monitoring competition or of recycling solutions, and it can most definitely no longer be in the business of creating three, five, seven or ten year plans (or 30 second ads).
Why? Because the world just does not look like that anymore, and it never will again! Also, there is no one giant leap into the future, there are only a series of continuous steps.
“Then what business should we be in?” I hear you say.
Obviously you should be in the business of delivering on your core product/service, and obviously some of the activities mentioned above will continue to be part of your life for some time to come.
But at the core you should be in the business of two things, and that is:
1) creating value – as in extreme value!
and
2) evolving – as in continuously!
If you put that at the centre of everything you do, and if you put your heart and mind into doing it brilliantly, then I believe the rest will follow. You won’t need to run after competition; you’ll be creating the path everyone will want to follow, you won’t need five year plans as grabbing opportunities when they come your way will be part of your competitive advantage, you won’t need to worry about who you should hire a year in advance (and for what role) as you will have a flexible employee network at your disposal…you won’t be… sorry I won’t go on (as I frequently do when I’m passionate about something), as this is a conversation better had over a coffee.
But suffice to say that I believe this so much I existed the agency world to start this fluid world (with Jonathan MacDonald), a company who helps organisations do just this. Whether we work on creating the ideal corporate culture, building people capabilities, designing new business models and revenue streams, advising on organisational structure or on creating new products and services, our focus is always on those two things; unlocking extreme value and building in flexibility, or should I say fluidity, in all our solutions.
Take a look at our site (click on pic) it will give you an idea of how we think and also of some of the work we have done.
I know “Most MD’s don’t want to hear that the world is in flux, they don’t want to plan around ‘not knowing’, or around ‘not being sure.’”…but I can’t help but believe that it’s by doing just that that they will become more competitive, and it’s by doing just that that they will develop better (and therefore more profitable) business models!
What can I say, I definitely believe this unpredictable future is bright, I really believe it’s orange!
Go ahead pick it!
…or maybe it’s blue, yellow, red, green … who knows, but I’m looking forward to figuring it out … as we go along!
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