The Shotgun Marketing Blog does an interesting job in showing how businesses engage in marketing in much the same way people fill-out their NCAA Brackets. My favorite take is this …
NCAA Bracket - After you fill out the bracket, pay into the pot, and tape your bracket to the wall, you no longer have any control. The teams will make or break you.
MARKETING - You can develop a great marketing plan and set it into motion, but in the end, it's your good/bad choices and the mindset of the market that will determine how it turns out. >>MORE<<
Strangely, this comment:
"You can develop a great marketing plan and set it into motion, but in the end, it's your good/bad choices and the mindset of the market that will determine how it turns out."
Seems to me to be an example of the "tail-of-the-coin" of the kind of marketing hubris that people were jumping on Jack Trout for the other day.
Jack wants to talk about "big" marketing; positioning. The old stuff. That gets scorned by some of us in the "new marketing" world. Marketing 2.0, as it were. It ain't "open" enough. But by saying things like, "...the market will determine how it will turn out," you do, I think, two things that are inimical to good, smart, high-functioning marketing.
1. You stick a fork in it before it's done. Why? Because it's never done. The mindset isn't ever "set." It never was. The last step of the perfect marketing plan is "repeat," and the first step is "take stock." So you're always looking to improve. You can't just sit there and say, "Well... I've made my 'bracket' picks... it's up to the players... the 'market'... to prove me right or wrong." HELL NO! It's up to you.. to US! We marketing princes, we advertising queens (with appologies to "Cider House Rules") are PAID to influence "the market." This is my cheef beef with word-of-mouth advertising when it's taken too far; it's another cop-out for marketers who don't have the bones to do the tough work. It throws responsibility back on "the audience." In the old days, badvertising execs would do this too; "the creative was too sophisticated." Bah! Same with WOMA... "I guess the word-of-mouth just wasn't strong enough... the buzz didn't catch." Bah-to-the-Nth. If there wasn't enough WOMA or buzz... it's YOUR fault. Our fault. Marketing's fault. It's our job to built the buzz.
2. Like so many marketing statements, the above sentiment leaves the implementation steps entirely out. I know this site is about marketing, so I'll be forgiving. But we have to remember that there are salespeople, operations folks, etc., who all impact the success of our campaigns. Our plans have to take that/them into account. So sitting back and saying, "The plan's done. I'm out," is folly. How are the salespeople swimming in the plan? Are the help desk folks getting killed because you worded the offer poorly? Did the mail-drop come down all at once to match the TV buy, and now the order-processing people can't get the stuff out in a reasonable time and you should hire some temps to help...
You can sit back and watch basketball and that's fun. Sitting back and watching your marketing will get you dead. 'Cause for us, in our game, we're not just making brackets... we're the players.
Posted by: Andy Havens | March 16, 2006 at 10:30 AM
Actually Andy...another one of the statements in my post is this....MARKETING - Marketing must evolve with market changes and surprises. Brackets can't be adjusted after the first tipoff...your marketing plan can.
Great point....we are the bracket makers, the players, the refs, and sometimes...the fans.
Posted by: Chris Houchens | March 16, 2006 at 01:49 PM