Some hard lessons will need to be learnt by the new crop of marketing managers who have never faced the evil of a recession, and even worse, one that has inflation as its bed-fellow.
Stagflation.
This is not supposed to happen, but it is, and we are seeing the first hints of it currently. Inflation growing rapidly, full employment, low interest rates lifting rapidly, we are facing an economic jigsaw that is defying conventional thinking.
Gone are the days when marketing could believe that failure was good, it was a learning opportunity for leveraging in the next round of potential failure. Increasingly the built in tolerance to failure will be tested, with an increased focus on pre experiment due diligence to reduce its incidence.
At last, we will revert to the core of business sustainability: Profit.
The absence of profit means that eventually, depending on the depth of your pockets, you will go broke. Nonetheless, marketing wankers for the last decade have been seduced by the comforting idea of ‘Purpose’. Often this seems to have overridden the old fashioned idea of delivering value to customers that leads to making a profit.
Every brand has a purpose they say. Heavens, I just want my washing soap to be an effective cleaner, my toothpaste to clean my teeth and leave a nice taste, my internet connection to work, and my car to start on cold mornings.
Having an explicit, relevant, and well understood Purpose is great. It provides a focus for the strategic choices that need to be made, and acts as an aligning ‘North Star’ for all stakeholders. However, purpose over profit is stupid, and the price of stupid is extinction.
Header cartoon credit: Thanks again to Scott Adams and Dilbert for clarifying and simplifying a complex question.
