Don’t start with who you already know and work with. And don’t start with your own fantasy objectives and strategies. While on the dating scene, they risk impairing you from the get-go. Instead open up by meeting A LOT of people from various agencies. Ask 25 people that you trust who the best agency they ever met is. Invite those. Try to figure out if they show potential for a deep relationship. Listen to their arguments. But don’t rely on gut alone. Ask all of them the same structured interview questions and analyze the answers. Scrutinize your potential partners carefully will save you a lot of time later. The below set of questions can serve as a starting point for a structured assessment.
Remove the black box in programmatic
In 10 years time from now more than 80% of all media will probably be digital and programmatic. Any exact guess about the future is almost always wrong, but I see that there are some trends clearly driving towards a future where digital and programmatic media constitute the vast majority of media:
1) Internet of things trend – That anything that can be connected will be connected. This also goes for more traditional media such as TVs, outdoor signs etc.
2) Automation trend – That if something is done more efficiently by computers it will be done by computers.
In the world of media, this would lead to a future where the vast majority of media is digital and accessed via programmatic buying.
Free insights tools – Keeping an even pace with people
There are more insights tools available for free online than most people know about. In this post I list 12 of my favorite ones from Google and go a bit deeper into one of them.
Below is a list of the 12 tools including a short description and link to each tool.
Reimagining the CMO’s brief
In this article at Think with Google I’m reimagining the CMO’s brief. The article goes through the main themes, but the full fictive brief is also attached as pdf to the article. The thinking is to instead of just talking about all the things you should be doing as a marketer, show it by writing the actual top-line brief. Hope you find it useful.
Also find the pdf version of the brief here: Reimagining the CMOs brief
Why are you in business?
Any CEO should be able to take their phone and record themselves for max 1 minute, explaining why they are in business. Why they get up in the morning. Why they expect employees to get up in the morning. In what way they contribute to the world. It is for many reasons increasingly important to be clear about why you are in business, and that the reason is something people want to get behind. This will be one of the fundamental building blocks for succeeding with your marketing efforts.
The only long-term sustainable competitive advantage
Do you agree that change is inevitable? If so, then per definition the ability to adapt, learn and develop is the only true long-term sustainable competitive advantage.
So, what are you going to learn in marketing next week? Tomorrow? Today? What did you learn last week? If you’re not intentional about your own and your organization’s learning then the risk is that you won’t learn as fast as your competitors are doing, which at some point will have a negative impact on your business. When private equity companies asks for my thoughts on how they should do a due diligence from a digital point-of-view I always begin by saying “Ask the CEO what their learning plan looks like. If she has a clear thought about learning that’s a very good indication.”.
Reaching more customers builds businesses – Loyalty doesn’t
The best marketing book I’ve read is Professor Byron Sharp’s “How Brands Grow”. I’m delighted to see that the follow-up book “How Brands Grow: Part 2” is now available in store. There is also a 48 min video available on YouTube summarizing his first book. If you work with marketing or study marketing in any way I consider this book a must read. What I like with Professor Sharp is that he doesn’t favor anything, but rather seeks the truth proven by data.
Objectives & KPIs
What KPIs should we use? This is a question I get more often than “How are you?”. Therefore I wanted to share my current best thinking. As always, I launch and iterate, but from where I stand today I believe this makes sense.
BrandBlast also on YouTube
The “magic” number that every advertiser should include in their media brief
Right now most advertisers are behind the curve of digital adoption in society, and in many cases the gap is very wide. The difference vs some years back is that the advertisers know it, and they know it’s not setting them up for success. Despite this, they struggle to make the changes necessary to create a marketing plan that reflects people’s behavior. Why is that? Why does it seem to be glue in the hallways?
Always Be Innovating 