Apr 25, 2024 | Culture, Leadership
‘Resilience’ is a word we are hearing a lot these days and will hear more today.
On this ANZAC day 2024, there will be a lot of words sprayed around that amount to acknowledgement of the resilience of ANZAC troops.
They clung to the cliffs on the Gallipoli peninsular, died in the mud of Passchendaele, slogged across the Owen Stanleys a couple of times, and lived under rocks in the seaside splendour of Tobruk.
It is used to describe both the personal characteristics required of the individual, and the culture of organisations.
The dictionary definition leaves a bit to be desired, referring to the ability of a person or organisation to return to a previous state. ‘Elasticity’ is a common simile.
How do we measure resilience? If we cannot measure it, as the saying goes, we cannot improve it.
What is the measure of resilience shown by the ANZACS in those meat grinders? Indeed, how do we measure the resilience of those at home, watching as the casualty lists were posted?
In a commercial context, resilience implies the degree to which an enterprise is able to absorb and adjust to the unexpected. Usually, it refers to the short term from the decisions made by others that drive an unexpected outcome that changes the status quo. Substantial competitive moves, new products that deliver new value, or the emergence of something that could be classed to some degree as ‘disruptive’.
Measuring by financial outcomes is misleading. Financial outcomes are the result of other decisions taken on the inputs to the business. Do that well, and you become financially secure, do it poorly and you go out of business.
The allied high command on the Western Front measured the outcomes of their initiatives by two things: the ground gained, and the casualties incurred. Of the two, the first was the more important to them. Field Marshall Haig never got close enough to the lines to understand the resilience required to ‘jump the bags’, again. The linkage and enormous gap between his orders, written in the splendour of the Château de Beaurepaire, and the squalor and death on the front lines that was the outcome, was never meaningfully acknowledged.
Measuring outcomes is always easier than measuring the inputs, then allocating cause and effect to the decisions but is rarely useful. Just as measuring your weight every morning will not assist you to lose weight in the absence of resulting reduction in calories, throwing yourself at a machine gun nest will not win ground.
It does however require resilience, courage, and dedication to both those beside you, the wider objective, and willingness to ‘do the work’.
In our modern world, despite the continuous marketing of the silver bullet products promising the contrary, there is no substitute for domain knowledge, planning, optimised resource allocation, and the sheer resilience to stick at it in the face of adversity.
It comes down to the culture at the micro level. How the individual behaves, and how that behaviour translates to the immediate group.
It has always be so.
It is a lovely autumn day in Sydney, as we reflect on those that gave us the opportunity to enjoy the freedoms we take for granted. It is also my beautiful daughters 38th birthday. Happy birthday Jenn!
How time flies.
The header is an arial photo of the gorge, hidden in the Wollemi State Forest, after the fires of 2019-20. The green spine is made up of the only stand left of Wollemi Pines. They have survived since the dinosaurs roamed the area. Resilience.
Apr 10, 2024 | Analytics, Communication
It seems that ‘the truth’ is a malleable concept.
We are overwhelmed by opinion masquerading as fact, economic and social models designed to deliver a predetermined outcome, managed correlation equated to causation, and market research that asks the wrong questions of the wrong people.
What is truth to one person is nonsense to another.
We should be able to see ‘the truth’ about what has passed, there is data that should distinguish fact from fiction. However, we still fail to discern the truth from amongst the data available for analysis.
Who is winning the war in the Ukraine?
Depends on who you ask, and both sides have data that shows conclusively that they are winning.
Remember Vietnam? I do.
The Americans had an overwhelming advantage in material, technology, and logistics. How could a little country with few resources and no technology of their own, face and win against the mightiest war machine the world has ever seen?
Impossible but it happened.
Until the Tet offensive commenced in January 1968, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind, apart from the North Vietnamese, that it was only a matter of time until the might of the Americans became overwhelming.
The Americans had data that proved to them they were winning, despite the secret conclusions contained in the Pentagon Papers. It was not until the spring offensive in 1974 that it was obvious to all that the American ‘Facts’ that were being analysed were irrelevant, and the conclusions drawn were terminally wrong.
The clear answer to the question in the header is: ‘only when you analyse the right data.’
Header credit: Hugh McLeod at Gapingvoid.com
Mar 15, 2024 | Analytics, Marketing
Every market research proposal must answer a duo of critical questions before it proceeds, if it is to be of any value.
What is it for, and how will it be used?
Market research is done for all sorts of reasons. Many commissioned projects have little to do with the examination of the critical factors in driving success.
They just provide a convenient crutch.
Several projects commissioned and paid for from marketing budgets I controlled would come in under the ‘what the F&&k’ category. However, in my defence they were usually quant studies designed to generate the numbers necessary to pass the accountants various thresholds. This enabled me to progress projects that qualitatively and ‘in my guts’ were winners. That is the way they usually turned out!
In the absence of clearly understanding how the research results were to be used, how they would add strategic, operational, or technical value, why should you bother?
There is a further tier of understanding that is required: Are you looking to define an objective outcome, or are you seeking understanding and insight?
In the case of the outcome required being quantitative, simple yes/no, black/white answers to a question are sufficient.
When you are looking for insight, there may be a few numbers, way below a level of statistical significance, but they can be reassuring. However, the value lies in discovering the connections, implications, options, and potentially hard to anticipate consequences.
Research is a critical step in successful marketing programs. However, in the absence of a very clear and compelling answer to the ‘What is it for’ question, it should not proceed.
The header illustration is the only AI used in this post.
Feb 29, 2024 | Change, Leadership, Marketing
If you asked a room full of marketers if marketing had changed in the last decade, you would get most of them telling you it had changed radically.
On the surface it has, the digital revolution has taken marketing by the neck and given it a great big shake.
There has been an explosion of sales, media, connection, and payment channels, customers are more wary, and do their own research before a marketer knows they are in the market. So called ‘content’ has almost infinite reach, but the frequency is rubbish, as there is so much digital noise, and so much competition for attention, that most of it is the digital equivalent of yesterday’s fish wrapper from the newspaper obituary section. The investment in marketing technology to manage all this has also exploded.
There is a welter of research and opinion that confirms the notion marketing has changed, some by very credible organisations.
I asked myself the question again, after stumbling across this report by Adobe, one of those credible organisations that supports the ‘yes’ vote, and came to a partly different conclusion.
Marketing has changed, absolutely, at the tactical level. The means by which marketers create and deliver a value proposition, then turn it into a transaction is unrecognisable from just 5 years ago. However, tactical implementation is just a small part of the pie.
Organisationally, marketing has changed a bit. Generally, it is still a function in a group of functional silos that reports to a CEO. A range of new titles have emerged, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Engagement Officer, and so on, but that does not change the essential reporting and accountability of those in senior marketing roles. The marketing organisation in large enterprises has also siloed, now there is digital, customer service, technology, and a range of other functional roles within marketing not present 5 years ago.
Strategically, marketing has changed little if at all. The role of marketing is to tell the future and adjust the value proposition to customers ahead of the changing preferences and behaviour. That has always been the case, and remains so.
The only strategic change I can see is one of leadership.
In the past, marketing has generally been a passive corporate player, relegated to the role of managing one of the largest expenses in the P&L. Now the value of enterprises is so much more in the hands of intangibles, that marketing is increasingly demanding a seat at the big table. This requires that marketers are able to lead their peers and boss. Unless they can achieve this position of leadership, they will remain the simple gatekeepers to one line in the P&L, rather than being responsible for the future health of the enterprise.
Look at it from the top down.
Marketing has changed little strategically, but strategy is by far the most important component.
It has changed organisationally, and while it is important, in most areas, it is not a game changer.
Tactically, marketing is unrecognisable, but who really cares. Tactics are short term, able to be changed in real time as the situation evolves. Marketers need the organisational capability to be able to change in real time, but the impact of failing to do so is limited.
The marketing groups that will be successful into the future are the ones that are successful leaders of their organisation. To achieve this role of leadership, they must be able to identify the priority areas for investment and activity, as well as being able to remove the organisational constraints that operate in every enterprise, that are not directly accountable to marketing.
Well, they are not accountable until marketers are in the corner office, which should be happening more and more as they are the future tellers. Those who currently occupy that office are usually the engineers, lawyers, and accountants who are good at reading the past in the data, and hoping the future looks similar.
Who is next in your corner office?
Feb 15, 2024 | Branding, Marketing
There are many contenders from around the globe for the mantle of ‘GOAT”, or at least of the last 20 years.
The obvious choice might be Steve Jobs, whose single-minded pursuit of all the factors that coalesce into great, long lasting, and commercially effective marketing culture is unparalleled.
You might nominate Elon Musk. He reshaped the auto industry worldwide, made batteries sexy, and figured out how to create a reuseable rocket, before imploding by renaming Twitter ‘X’.
How about Jeff Bezos who figured we would buy books online and turned that idea into a retail behemoth that has reshaped markets.
Some might add the foul mothed Gary Vaynerchuck to the list, whose ability to promote himself while talking about himself is unmatched.
Then there is a small number of genuinely original marketing thinkers and academics: Seth Godin, Mark Ritson, Byron Sharp, Roger Martin, and Scott Galloway.
Add in a few hands-on practitioners like Angela Ahrendts, Richard Branson, Marc Pritchard, and a trio of Aussies who changed the world, Melanie Perkins, and the Atlassian duo of Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes (whose core values include ‘don’t F%@k the customer’) and you have a good list.
However, my nomination would be from outside the usual ‘who is the GOAT’ box. It is a 34-year-old musician, songwriter, entrepreneur, and publicity machine, who has added tens of billions to the GNP of the US.
Taylor Swift.
I could not identify one Taylor Swift song, and I do not know if she even has any musical talent, but she certainly is a truly great marketer!!
To have the world talking about you, (even a 72-year-old bloke in a blog post) to have massive fan clubs of ‘Swifties’ salivating over every new piece of iconography, hordes fighting to pay eyewatering amounts to get nosebleed seats in a 100,000 seat stadium, takes some talent.
What makes her so great? Indeed, what are the common characteristics of all those in the list?
- Understands who her customers are, and applies relentless focus. Swifts core market is young women and girls. She has demonstrated mastery in engaging with that audience with the music, visual extravaganza, and personal storytelling that resonates. She is also a powerful role model, encouraging independence, ambition, creativity and determination, emotions to which those in her market all aspire.
- Consistently creates value for customers, individually. It seems the ‘Swifties’ out there all see Taylor as someone they easily relate to personally, across a wide range of channels and media. She is consistently delivering experiences, based on the music and extravaganza shows, but supported by all sorts of adjacent activities, such as having Kobe Bryant, a superstar in his field, come on stage at a concert and wax lyrical about her kindness, generosity, and ‘grounded’ personal values. She tells Swifties what they want to hear, and even their parents have trouble arguing!
- Is ‘the only one’. Marketing success is an outcome of meticulous attention to detail, and the communication of all those details in a package. It requires two types of activity that is an extremely difficult mix to get right. On one hand, you need to ensure ‘activation’. The calls to action that today generate the motivation to spend money to be a part of the party. On the other, it requires that long term investment be made that build a brand, an identity that engages and creates a long-term platform from which the activation and short-term revenue generators are launched. When done well, as in this case, there will be ‘only one’. Where else can a teenage girl find the excitement, engagement, communal vibe she gets from being part of a ‘Swiftie’ fan community?
- Swift applies compounding leverage. Taylor has executed a masterful commercial strategy. Unlike almost all other entertainers, she has retained control of everything, and runs the whole shebang as the CEO of a large, volatile and very complex business entity. Her uncanny ability to generate ‘Buzz’ around everything she does, which is spread by wildfire word of mouth and unpaid media enables a continuous stream of ‘Swift-news’ which has fans hanging out for more. She provides the creativity, leadership, and alignment most CEO’s can only dream of across the diverse range of activity her business embraces.
Swift is touring Australia, starting later this month, with multiple sold out shows in Sydney and Melbourne. The hype is becoming all consuming: you even have to reserve a spot in the line to pick up your merch and get to the cash register at the exit of the ‘pop-up’ merchandise stores.
Header illustration is via DALL-E, everything else is ‘organic’
