Marketing - Servant of Chaos

The Best Case Study Music in the World

I have written case studies, I have submitted case studies for awards. And I have judged awards. But they can often be an unemotional slog.

By their nature, case studies tend toward the factual. They’re often devoid of “feelings” – and struggle to tell story of impact. But what if there was the case study equivalent of the Tenacious D song “Best Band in the World”? What if there was a way to tell a case study as a Tribute? What would that mean? And would it change things?

The good folks at ADMA have taken on this challenge – producing a song that can be readily inserted into the background of your case study video.

It’s going to turn problems, solutions and results into gold, silver and bronze trophies,” said ADMA CEO, Jodie Sangster. “The air freight bill back from Cannes next year is going to be astronomical.”

But what goes into creating the best case study music in the world? Here’s a quick video of the process, featuring many of the Australia’s leading agencies and creatives in a surprising surge of collaborative spirit.

The Case Study Song of the Year can be purchased with lifetime rights and comes with a complimentary ticket to ADMA’s Creative Fuel event, Thursday August 6 at the Seymour Centre in Sydney. It’s a chance to not only hear the live premiere of this creative masterpiece – you can also hear from some of the best creative thinkers around.

Don’t Throw Out Marketing Skills with the Digital Bathwater

Digital 101, Digital Strategy, Marketing

The marketing skills gap is a hot topic right now. No matter how many clients, colleagues or competitors that I speak with, it’s clear that the marketing industry is facing a skills crisis. And the questions and discussions are often the same:

Do we have the right people?
How do we understand data and put it to work?
Do we have the right technology?
What do we do with the technology we’ve already got?
How do we plug the gaps?

But it is NOT all doom and gloom. Many of the marketing skills and processes that have been developed over the last few decades are still eminently useful in the digital world. They just need some retraining, cross-training. As I explain on the newly revamped Telstra Exchange blog – marketing is from mars, digital is from venus:

In the traditional world of marketing, we’d think about this as media. We’d break it into paid media, owned and earned. It’s media that is created from a central point and pushed out, interrupting the lives of our audiences with its urgency. Even where that media is “earned” or “social”, it’s still created with a particular focus and intention. And from the inside of our marketing command centre we run the sums. Counting, measuring, assessing and reporting.

Read the full article here.

Six Marketing Visionaries Look to the Future

FutureVisions, Marketing, Smart Bloggers

The Economist Intelligence Unit has interviewed six marketing visionaries who are sharing their insights of what the future of marketing looks like. The “Future of Marketing” initiative is sponsored by Marketo, and publishes conversations with Seth Godin, John Hagel, Aditya Joshi, Marc Mathieu, Jim Stengel and myself. It makes for great, and varied reading, with each person taking a particular path to the future:

Seth Godin encourages us to make stories worth telling. He argues that marketing is about everything and that today’s marketer must be embedded within what the company makes, working and pushing towards what the customer wants.
John Hagel says that marketing is just experiencing the tip of the iceberg in terms of transformative change. We are going to see more marketers having to work with what he calls the “three As” – attract, assist, affiliate. The “power of pull” means we need to work to attract customers, help pre and post purchase, and find new models to help customers help each other.
Gavin Heaton discusses PANDA – a framework for the future of marketing. Tapping into purpose, analytics, networks, digital and art (yes art), marketing will not only remain relevant as a business and consumer facing profession, it will help drive brands and companies to deliver greater value to its stakeholders, customers and networks.
Aditya Joshi looks at the skill base at the marketers of the future. And by future, he means now. Clearly we need to be investing in marketing teams to build out strategic thinking, analysis capabilities to derive insights and develop actionable plans and technology abilities to help organisations straddle marketing and IT.
Marc Mathieu also speaks of massive change. Technology is infusing how we connect with people, learn from them, connect with entrepreneurs and engage with audiences. But perhaps the most challenging aspect is a central shift in purpose – “Marketing used to be about creating a myth and selling; now it’s about finding a truth and sharing it”.
Jim Stengel breaks the future into three components, personalisation, automation and purpose (yes it’s a theme). He also flags storytelling as a mechanism to encompass the whole approach. “You don’t have a story unless you have purpose, have ambition, and are trying to make a difference in the world. More and more, people care about where brands come from”.

Take your time and read one of these interviews per day. There are insights that you don’t need to wait five years for – they are practices that you can embed in your thinking now and prepare for out to 2020. After all, the future is a moving feast. Take your seat at the table.

Why Clients Really Fire Agencies-And other insights from the SoDA Report

AgencyWorld, Customer Experience, Digital Strategy, Marketing

No matter whether there is a change in CMO or marketing director or whether it’s time for a review, agency management can be an emotional challenge. Over years of collaboration, organisations build collaborative ways of working together – processes, systems and tools become intertwined. People become friends. Colleagues. Even partners. So what really happens when a client fires an agency? Darren Woolley has an answer that may surprise you.

As Founder and CEO of TrinityP3, Woolley has a particular view on how and why the client-agency comes undone. “The sum of the parts equal an underlying whole … which is they no longer feel the love and commitment”. The challenge, however, is that this is an emotional response to a situation, but the business focus remains on the work being performed. As a result, the agency may respond to the client’s feedback technically or creatively while not addressing the client’s feelings of dissatisfaction. This is a recipe for disaster.

In his chapter for the SoDA Report on Digital Marketing, Woolley goes into more detail, suggesting that there are four critical junctures for the relationship:

When a new marketing leader is appointed – it’s review time, so the focus on rapid relationship building is essential
Before the honeymoon ends – don’t wait until the goodwill is gone, start proactive account management from day 1
Quiet periods – the challenge is to remain visible, provide value but don’t appear to be wasting time and money
Performance pressure – when the work is underperforming, tensions are bound to arise.

Navigating the professional and emotional tightrope is always challenging. But going that extra mile really never hurt any relationship.

The SoDA Report’s Digital Marketing Outlook is a great snapshot of the industry. Covering topics from the modern marketer to technology, with a couple of handy case studies thrown in, it’s a fantastic resource to inspire your 2015 planning.

The SoDA Report (Volume 2, 2014) from SoDA

Do CMOs Like to Play the Field?

Marketing, Research Report, Uncategorized

CMOs are a funny breed. They work with a constant tension – half living in the shadow of the former incumbent and half looking towards their own future vision. And with a tenure that lasts about 45 months, that means that there is about two years’ worth of clean air for the marketing chief to make their stamp on a business. It’s precious little when you think about it.

So, from an agency point of view, working with a CMO also has challenging ramifications. Is there alignment between the agency and the CMO? Is there a long term partnership? Or is there a whole new agenda at play?

The Agency Management Institute has released a study that looks under the hood at what truly drives the agency partnership by interviewing CMOs from across the US. It reveals three main style of CMO:

Looking for love: these are the CMOs who are in it for the long haul. They are looking for the one-stop-shop and see the agency as a partner in the business and brand building process
Playing the field: this is the CMO who hires best of breed. They want the expert know-how and will shake up the agency relationship to keep the blood pumping
Single and satisfied: these CMOs are firmly in control of their own destiny – they’ve got strong in-house teams and use agencies on a project by project basis.

Understanding the CMO you are dealing with can help you plan ahead. But there are some things that all the CMOs agreed upon – agencies need to stop being pushy and need to work on building trust levels. Easy to say, hard to do.

ADMA-Telstra Young Marketer and Young Creative of the Year Finalists

Awards, Creativity, Marketing

There was a time where I wore a rather cynical hat when it came to awards. I’d look at the projects that won and the effort that would go into creating the award pitches and see holes, sub-standard work or missed opportunities. But with more experience on both client and agency sides, I am far more forgiving. And sometimes astounded or amazed at the work that does get done. After all, almost every piece of work that is seen in public has been pored over, compromised, championed and changed. It’s the rough and ready world of creative collaboration – and it’s harder than a dozen series of Mad Men would have you believe.

Which is why it’s important to celebrate the fact that great work is done and that there are scores of young marketers showing the leadership to make it happen.

Sponsored by Telstra, the finalists for the ADMA Young Creative of the Year are:

Tara Mckenty, Creative Director, Google APAC, for ‘Make your own luck’
Sal Cavallaro, Art Director, 303Lowe Sydney, for ‘An Eye into NY’
Brendan Graham, Copywriter and Strategist, Soap Creative, for ‘Under 30 invite’
Scott Nolan, Senior Art Director, Drifter, for ‘Flirt with your future’
Elliott White, Junior Copywriter, JWT, for ‘Launch brand you.’

And the finalists for the ADMA Young Marketer of the Year are:

Sue Kim, Product Marketing Specialist, Adobe
Richard Schmid, Advertising Manager, Dick Smith
Lucas Black-Dendle, Strategic Planner, Whybin\TBWA Group Sydney
Allister Hercus, Social Media Strategist, MEC
Penny Richardson, Head of Customer Marketing, Foxtel.

The overall winners will be announced on Thursday, 30 October at ADMA’s Australian Creativity and Effectiveness Awards (AC&E Awards) at The Star, Pyrmont. The winning creative campaign will be rolled out nationally as a call to entry for the 2015 ADMA Young Marketer and Young Creative competitions.

Disrupting the Music Industry – Vodafone and Spotify buddy-up

Audience 2.0, Authenticity, Disruptive Technology, Marketing, Music

Today’s announcement making Spotify Premium available to Vodafone mobile subscribers amps up the pressure on the music and media industries with more disruption on the horizon.

They say that the number one reason that startups fail is due to distribution. It’s not a poorly designed product, or an inexperienced team or even bad customer experience. The challenge, as it is for any new business, is reaching a market.

Now, it used to be that we knew where to find music – on radio stations, at record bars and on Countdown. As a kid, I’d go and see Mrs Fry at Sandy’s Music in Dee Why (and yes, it is still there). With her son, Nigel, they were the go-to people when it came to new music – from the most interesting punk coming out of the UK through to the emerging Birthday Party more locally, they had their finger on the pulse. They could steer you through both country and western, knew the difference between Boy George and Marilyn and would even keep an autographed single behind the counter for you.

Nigel and Jenny were the central node in a local music marketing network. And each week, they inspired their customers with stories of new music, artists and breakthrough video clips. Their knowledge and passion was extensive and their enthusiasm was contagious. Each person would leave the shop knowing just a little bit more about the music they were about to listen to. In effect, they were creating and cultivating advocates – people who would influence their friends and family through music.

But the shift to digital has transformed this kind of relationship. Our music discovery is no longer curated in the same way by the programming directors, radio hosts or record bar owners. It’s at the mercy of algorithms, networks and big data stores. And it feels like it … but I digress.

Most importantly, we are playing under new rules of distribution. Music needs to find its audience – and increasingly, that audience exists at the end of a data stream. The device that transforms that stream into music is a phone. And this places mobile phone networks in a powerful position.

With the ink now drying on the Vodafone + Spotify partnership, Voda customers will have access to the Spotify Premium package as part of their plan – that’s $11.99 a month in value. And while the deals are not yet up on the website, I’d expect you can chat with customer service about it.

But this is not the end of the line for the music industry. Nor is it for the media industry. After all, disruption also breeds opportunity – and the very thing that made Sandy’s Record Bar popular is still the thing that we crave. And for all the technology under the sun, we haven’t been able to replicate that yet.

Marketing Led Sales – a new era for Hubspot and CRM

Innovation, Marketing, Social Business

Back in the beginning of 2013, I released a research report into the field of marketing automation. It investigated the challenges faced by marketers – from the explosion in digital and social channels to the newly emerging connected consumer and sought to map out the strengths of the various marketing technology vendors and their software offerings. In this report, I had identified that:

HubSpot looks to upset the apple cart.

With the focus on inbound marketing I predicted that HubSpot was well placed to become a future category leader.

At the recent INBOUND2014 conference, HubSpot announced a bold new offering – HubSpot CRM. Now, HubSpot, along with many other marketing automation platforms have long provided a simple CRM-style database – or tight integration to dedicated customer relationship management platforms such as Salesforce. But this feels different. It is different. It is FREE – as part of your HubSpot subscription.

But it’s not the pricing (or lack thereof) that feels revolutionary. It’s the fact that the HubSpot CRM reverses the priority of CRM – from sales first to marketing first. So now, rather than CRM and sales leading the customer process, HubSpot reaches out through its marketing platform to engage customers and then automatically connects them through to the sales teams seamlessly. The CRM platform works almost behind the scenes, logging your sales emails, phone calls and leads as they are made, not after the fact. And because it is part of the one platform, the marketing data that has been accumulated through various touch points, from web, to download, to webinar and so on, is also immediately available to the sales team as the relationship moves closer to conversion.

This new extension to an already powerful mid-market solution will strengthen what is already an attractive software platform. More importantly, it presents small and medium businesses with a compelling proposition – all in one, integrated sales and marketing automation.

And while this is a welcome mid-market addition, I am most excited about what this means for those organisations actively engaged in strategic digital marketing. Sure, most companies are shifting to digital, but those organisations with a mature approach to digital will be able to quickly deploy this kind of solution to create a competitive advantage. With HubSpot CRM, customers – and the customer experience – is more tightly connected to the sales process. It’s marketing led sales, not sales driven marketing. And this is a revolution that has been waiting in the wings.

Now I can’t wait to see what the next act brings.

Disrupt Your Strategy – Planning for Audiences not Generations

Audience 2.0, Big Data, Digital Disruption, Digital Strategy, Disruptive Technology, Infographics, Marketing, Strategy

I have never been a fan of demographic profiling. Sure, this information, at scale, can reveal certain things about a population – and this can be useful to understand whether there might be a connection between our age and (for example) our propensity to over-eat. Or contract disease. Or buy new cars every four years.

But populations don’t interest me. They feel like a dead weight around my sense of, and interest in, humanity. Instead, I prefer audiences – which is perhaps why I studied theatre rather than statistics.

It’s also why I am continually fascinated by digital technology and transformation – and it is why social media continues to attract the attention of people, corporations and governments. For digital transformation is not just about bringing the non-digital world online – it’s challenging the very nature of what we consider “our selves” to be.

As marketers, we are constantly drawn to the idea of demographics – the cashed up profiling of the Baby Boomers, the anxious, try-harder Gen X-ers and the slacker Gen Ys. But like any generalisation, these labels are easily unpicked. There are plenty of Baby Boomers who are slackers and plenty of cashed up, power wielding Gen X-ers. And Gen Y are just starting to flex their creative, financial and intellectual powers – and there is more goodness to come. Rather than simply relying on this style of profiling, we should be working harder to understand these audiences. We need to map their behaviours, attitudes and interests, not just their age, sex and location.

This is why I quite like the work that marketing automation firm, Marketo, has done on Generation Z. And while, yes, they have started out with the age-focused label, the research carried out by agency, Sparks and Honey, reveals the patterns of behaviour, interests, attitudes and insights that can help build a deeper understanding of this audience. While the data reflects a US-based audience, there are cultural parallels that are useful indicators such as:

Do-Gooders – an interest in making a difference in the world
Shift FROM Facebook – Facebook lost its allure when the parents arrived. Gen Z are embracing newer platforms like snapchat, secret and whisper
Creation trumps sharing – Gen Z embrace the prosumer ethic of digital media creativity.

But to really understand this “Gen Z” audience, I would go further. I wouldn’t stop at the age of 19. I would ask:

Why would my brand be relevant to audiences exhibiting these behaviours
Why would these audiences choose to purchase my product/service/thing
Which values embodied by my brand augments the life, behaviour, experience or purpose of this audience
How do these behavioural profiles help me understand my customers regardless of age / demographics

And when it comes to planning, insight and future proofing your brand, I’d look to opportunities to self-disrupt your strategy. Ditch the path of lazy profiling, put the work in to really understand your audiences, and then invite them into the process of creating a brand that has a purpose. Start by delving into the data behind the Sparks and Honey research (below) – and then work on your own business by starting with the audiences you rely upon.

ADMA Experts – 56 Trends Shaping Australian Marketing

Marketing, Research Report

Each couple of months, Association of Data-driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA) convenes their expert groups on a wide range of topics. Drawn from across the marketing landscape, these groups hash out important, practical topics and challenges that impact their daily work. There are groups that focus on multi-channel, and acquisition and lead generation through email, B2B, search and social media to data and analytics – and everything else between.

Having been a participant for the last two years, it can be a fascinating process to go through. It’s a chance to share your own business and marketing challenges and to learn from others.

Earlier this year, each member of every group was asked to put together a brief prediction for 2014. All of these have now been collated and published. And you can download the report for free. The report outlines 56 trends from data and privacy to wearable tech. It may be the most useful 22 page report you’ll read this year. It will, at the very least, challenge your plans and strategies for the months ahead – and hopefully validate your own work. Download it free here.