Friction is the one thing between you and more sales
For many brands, marketing is not really about AIDA (awareness, interest, desire & action). For many brands, its about FAF: friction, typically followed by anger, and collapsing in frustration. Apparently there has been a shift of power from the brand to the customer. We once could dictate how the customer engaged with us, but now […]
Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, & Total Nonsense: Truthiness and Alternative Facts in Marketing.
I believe in evidence based marketing. Too often, I hear just opinion, not fact. Stephen Colbert, the American comedian, coined the word ‘truthiness’ to refer to arguments not based on fact but what we would like to be true. Here is a great quote from him: “It used to be, everyone was entitled to their […]
How can marketers hope to know what is coming around the corner?
Most people reading this can remember what they were doing 10 years ago. But 10 years ago, the Apple iPhone had only just launched. It did not really make an impact initially as the cool kit was the Blackberry Pearl. The number of people with broadband in the world was less than 300 million. Now […]
Five ways to innovate as a marketer
We live in an age of technological acceleration and marketers are on the frontline. New ideas, new channels and disruptive technologies appear to be coming at us exponentially faster. The two most commonly cited responses to this rapid product and technological advancement (or indeed obsolescence) is to ‘disrupt yourself’ or to ‘innovate more’. But what […]
Budgets – a time-consuming exercise of limited value & the most ineffective practice in management
To be frank, I see budgeting as a time-consuming exercise of limited value – and essentially, the most ineffective practice in management. Luckily, there are a few big hitters who agree with me: “budget suck the energy, time, fun, and big dreams out of an organisation. It hides opportunity and stunts growth. It brings out […]
Our biases causes us to be bad marketers
Whenever we try to figure out a future outcome — like ‘will this new product work when I launch it in the market?’– marketers enter a minefield. If it’s a success, should we readily convince ourselves that we understood that this was going to happen, and our sheer greatness as a marketer made it all […]
Recruiting: the myth of war on talent and where marketers should set-up
Hands up those of you reading this who have applied for a job, one that you thought you had the perfect mix of skills, qualifications and experience. And, you really wanted the role – so you had the right mix of motivation and attitude. And then, nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not a word. Or if you […]
Chinese New Year: What we can all learn from China in the Year of the Fire Rooster
This last week of January and the first week of February marks Chinese New Year, called the ‘Spring Festival’ in China. Many millions of Chinese people travel back to their families in the provinces to celebrate the festival, the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar. Starting from 28 January, celebrations will continue for around […]
Confessing to heretical marketing beliefs
I have a confession to make. A heresy that I will probably ensure that I get burned at the stake. Or, perhaps, the 21st century equivalent, trolled on Twitter. Most of us marketers should just basically ignore what the top brands are doing. I believe that Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Toyota, IBM, Samsung, Amazon, Mercedes-Benz […]
Marketers obsess over new tech, tools & channels, but does we really have a clue?
One of the best books about Hollywood is ‘Adventures in the Screen Trade’ in which the screenwriter William Goldman asserts that “nobody knows anything”. He was referring to the fact that despite their market research, gut instinct and experience, no one in Hollywood has any idea how well a film will do before its release. […]
What have the Romans ever done for marketing?
In Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ film, a rag-tag bunch of pseudo-revolutionaries called The People’s Front of Judea asked the question: “What have the Romans ever done for us?” Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, it turns out they gave us one […]
Hate new-year predictions? Who cares? Here are mine!
At this time of year, you can’t move for articles pontificating about what will happen in the next 12 months. But if you can’t beat them, join them. It’s that time of year again. No, I’m not referring to the endless discussions of the John Lewis Christmas campaign, or, for that matter, having a […]
Big Data Downer
The two scariest words in the marketing lexicon are not ‘you’re fired’. They are in fact, ‘big data’. Why? Because nobody really has a clue what it means or what it entails. It sounds like one of those things is going to be good. And, like any mot du jour, it has spawned its own […]
How can you get marketing to be seen as the growth drivers rather than the ‘colouring in’ department?
Marketing is rarely viewed as a process-based profession. The marketing profession is often seen as the exact opposite, compared to the process thinking, of say, project management. Marketers are expected to be creative – even when we don’t have a creative bone in our body. We are expected to provide the inspiration, not the perspiration. […]
Learning from those who turned small brands into big brands
I believe that marketers are using a framework of marketing knowledge built for a different age. Most of the brands I used as metaphors and examples for explanation, such as the big FMCG brands are basically, old, as in, been around for ages. They have followed a similar brand playbook that has been taught in […]
Six ways to think about innovation – before you start trying to innovate!
Never fall in love: If you think the idea of innovation involves placing big bets on WAGs (wild ass guesses), then save everybody’s time, and buy a lottery ticket. However, if you’d prefer to launch something new into the world with a bit more knowledge about how customers might respond, then you must never fall […]
There’s a reason the classics still work.
We all know that the world has changed dramatically over the last ten years. There was no such as an iPhone. Dial-up internet was still a thing. And the most overused consumer segment in the marketing lexicon, ‘Millenial’, was yet to launch a thousand blog articles. However, even worse than the tsunami of clickbait Millenial […]
Digital transformation is vital for creating a customer-obsessed business culture
If there is one thing Mobile World Congress 2016 confirmed – amongst all the talk of wearables, the IoT and virtual reality being the future – it’s the fact that we are living in what is now a truly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world.