Nov 21, 2022 | Communication, Governance, Strategy
The purpose of a brief is not to be brief.
A brief, for whatever purpose it is written should be a catalyst for creative thinking, examination of options, and father of a robust solution. This applies equally to an engineering brief as it does to an advertising brief, research brief, or brief given to a head-hunter searching for a new CEO.
Failure to write a good brief will lead to a sub-optimal outcome, or at best, considerable delay and false starts that consumes resources unnecessarily.
A comprehensive, well thought out brief is not a guarantee of success, but it certainly shortens the odds.
Following is a framework for the next time you have to write a brief, for whatever purpose.
Let strategy drive the brief.
Strategy should be the primary driver of every decision taken in an enterprise, down to the daily tactical decisions. It provides the framework for the choices that need to be made. Most briefs I have seen are disconnected from strategy. Sometimes this is just poor leadership, in others it reflects the lack of any strategy, which is evidence of poor management. In the absence of a clear strategy, the choices made as an outcome of a brief of any sort may as well have been taken in a vacuum.
Define the need.
A brief will be in response to some need to be addressed. It may be a competitive challenge, it may be seeking a solution for an internal problem, or it may be seeking information, or be focussed on an opportunity of some sort.
Ensuring the need the brief is seeking to address is clearly articulated is vital to the construction of an actionable brief to experts that will enable them to bring appropriate expertise to bear to deliver the planned outcome.
Define the objectives.
As noted above, the generation of a brief presupposes there is an investment of some sort being contemplated. No investment should be made in the absence of explicitly stated outcomes the investment is expected to deliver. These are usually stated as objectives.
The best objectives are always those against which performance can be measured, SMART objectives. In some circumstances, such as an advertising brief, such clarity is challenging to achieve. It requires deep thought to indentify the drivers of the outcome, the lead indicators, that can be reliably measured. However, the effort will deliver returns, whatever the arena for the brief.
Assemble all relevant facts and informed analysis.
It should go without saying, but no brief is complete unless there is a comprehensive collection and analysis of all facts, and information relevant to the choices that will be made. Objectivity is a blessing. Sometimes it is hard to know where to draw the line, particularly when constructing a creative brief. Average will rarely deliver results, and continuation of the status quo while often ‘safe’ in a corporate environment, is bound to deliver ordinary results at best. There is a warning here for marketers, who will take this to be a licence to change advertising execution. Marketers are often way too close to their advertising and get tired of it before the average participant in the market has seen the message sufficiently to absorb and act on it.
Execute with experts.
A great brief in the hands of the summer intern will not usually deliver a useful result. No matter how great the brief, expertise in coming to grips with the nuances and options presented, requires wisdom that only comes from experience.
Simplicity.
While this post opened with the observation that the purpose of a brief was not to be brief, it is also the case that the simpler, more concise, more focused on the drivers of success the brief is, the better. Simplicity will increase the ability of those responding to make the choices they need to in order to deliver the outcomes being sought. Steve Jobs said it best when he said: ‘Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’ about 50 years after Einstein said: ‘everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler’
Note to the unwary. When what should be a ‘Brief’ is called a ‘Tender’ it is a sure sign that price is the dominating consideration, and you are not the only one being invited to the party.
Header cartoon credit: Tom Gauld in ‘New Scientist’
Nov 16, 2022 | Innovation, Marketing, Strategy
One of the standard assumptions about strategy is that it evolves from the top. Those at the top of the organisation have access to all the information and resources necessary to craft the strategy that will then be deployed through the organisation. Then, crucially, they have the power to make those critical resource allocation decisions that drive activity. Sometimes that strategic development process is assisted by people from a range of functions and levels, all given the opportunity to have their say, and be a part of the process.
When you think hard about it, this top-down dynamic, however it is constructed and communicated is a load of old cobblers.
It should never work that way if what you want is an optimised outcome.
The objective of strategy is to figure out how to outcompete the competition, current, emerging and potential. That implies that strategy should be born at the point of competition. This point is not the supermarket shelf, the procurement office of customers, or in the boardroom, but in the definition of the source of the competitive advantage you are creating.
Building competitive advantage is a long-term task that requires choices to be made about the way available resources are to be deployed. If the competitive arena is based on the outcomes of R&D, as it is a digital product, then you had better allocate the resources to ensuring you are at least amongst the best in the field. Similarly, if it is in the excellence of customer service, you had better build the infrastructure to ensure no customer is left waiting and wondering.
This sort of analysis consumes time and intellectual energy from a wide range of stakeholders, not just the few sitting around the senior management table.
Clearly there can be an internal conflict when a business has more than one offering that have different points of competition.
That challenge can only be managed by ensuring that there is a source of common leverage that can be applied to all the product portfolios. Usually this will prove to be a brand that has built the credibility necessary to be compelling in both arenas.
A current client has two competitive arenas with entirely different business models and sets of capabilities necessary to support them. However, the physical products are very similar, emerging from the same technology ‘home base’. The strategies being deployed are different, although there is some commonality in the value proposition, but tactically, they are entirely different. Two years ago, there was a third product range that seemed to be an obvious extension, but proved to be a major distraction, as the competitive coalface was focussed elsewhere. As we lacked the resources to accommodate three, the product category was exited. That has proved to be a good decision, albeit very tough at the time.
The moral is to craft your strategy around the competitive arena where you must win to be commercially successful. If you cannot win in a definitive manner, the better choice is to exit and deploy the released resources where the return for winning is higher.
This is challenging stuff, so call me whan a bit of wisdom from experience might help.
Nov 14, 2022 | Customers, Marketing
Last week I published a post that outlined the four essential questions for successful marketing. A number of people contacted me and said, ‘more detail please’.
So, here goes:
What problem can I solve?
Unless you can solve a problem for someone, why would they buy from you?
Albert Einstein, my senior marketing guru, said, amongst other things, “If I had an hour to solve a life defining problem, I would spend the first 50 minutes defining the problem, the rest is just maths’
So, do your research before you jump in.
The definition of how you solve the problem becomes your value proposition. In other words, how does what you do add value to the lives of those ideal customers?
If you cannot articulate that, you have nothing except price, and nobody wins a price war.
The solutions to problems come from being able to ask the right questions.
Seeing things others do not see, solving problems better than others, and sometimes seeing a potential problem before it is an acknowledged problem, highlighting it, and then solving it.
The classic case is the iPod. It was not the first MP3 player, and arguably it was not the best technically, but it did something no other mP3 player did. It put ‘1000 songs in your pocket’. It articulated the problem that the product solved.
While others all talked about their technical superiority, the stuff the geeks thought was important, Apple just told us what consumer problem they solved.
Who is my ideal customer?
Who is your ideal customer, the one who will not haggle the price, who loves the product you sell, and proselytises for you? Knowing that person in detail would be marketing and commercial gold.
Like all gold, it is hard to find, subject to all sorts of distractions and false starts, but immensely valuable when discovered, and discovery is usually incremental, rather than a ‘eureka’ moment. This means it is also a demanding challenge.
What is often also forgotten in the effort to define that ideal customer, is that every customer also has an ideal supplier, one who meets all their needs, delivering value in excess of the cost to them. It is a two-way street, and a relationship only prospers where there is value being delivered to both parties.
Defining your ideal customer is an iterative process, deceptively demanding, as it requires choices about who is not an ideal customer, and therefore excluded from primary consideration. Choices like this are challenging, but necessary, particularly for small and medium businesses which do not have the luxury of a big pot of marketing money. You must get it right or risk wasting limited resources.
Following is a list of 6 parameters you can use. Not all will be equally applicable in every situation, but it will pay to give each deep consideration.
Who: Is the demographics they may exhibit. Where they live, age, gender, education, job, and all the other quantitative characteristics that are available. These parameters are pretty much all that was easily available in any detail until digital tools came along.
What: are their behaviours. Do they go to the opera or rock concerts, perhaps both, do they travel overseas for holidays, what sort of causes, if any, do they support, are they likely to demonstrate their beliefs publicly, or are they just internal. All the sorts of things that offer a picture of how they think, feel, and behave in all sorts of situations.
Where: will you find them digitally, as well as in the analogue (perhaps real) world, and what means can you use to make a connection. Are they likely to be avid users of Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social platforms, are they comfortable buying online, do they ‘showroom’ digitally then visit the physical retailer, do they get their news from Facebook and Reddit, or more focused news sites, or even, surprise, surprise, newspapers, radio and magazines.
When: will they be ready to buy? Customers are rarely ready to buy when you are ready to sell. Understanding the customer buying cycles, particularly in B2B and a larger consumer purchase is critical.
Why: should they respond to your entreaties, to do whatever it is you are asking of them. What is your value proposition to them? What promise of a new and better tomorrow can you deliver? What can you deliver that is different and more valuable to them than any alternative? If you cannot answer these questions, it will come down to price, and winning a price war is a great way to go broke.
How: will you service the transaction, and the subsequent relationship that may emerge? This is usually down to questions about your business model and the ‘fit’ that has with the customer.
How and where do I apply Maximum Marketing Leverage?
Identifying the point at which you can apply Maximum Marketing Leverage (MML), or in other words, get the most productivity from your marketing investment is the point at which the previous three questions intersect.
Answering these three questions leads to conclusions on the fourth; how do I make a profit? Answering that requires a combination of introspection on your business, in combination with ‘exospection’, the examination of your business from an external perspective. The point where these two perspectives intersect is the best spot to apply marketing leverage.
Most will be familiar with the SWOT model of business analysis; this is one of many, and simplest of the many ‘Mental Models’ you can use to do the examination. Porters 5 forces, Balanced Scorecard, BC matrix, Business Model Canvas, and many others are alternatives. All have their pros and cons, but the key point is that you give due consideration to them, as they will identify and clarify your point of MML.
How do I make a profit?
Just as a successful young single male professional might opt for a red sports car, when 10 years later, with a family, kids, soccer practise, he might opt for a brick on wheels, you can have different business models to suit different circumstances and conditions.
Most small and medium businesses with which I have been associated give little if any thought to the business model, but it is of critical importance.
Are you retail, wholesale, franchised, subscription, digital, or some combination? All are different, working in differing ways, to allocate and absorb the costs and benefits that accrue. Being very clear about your business model and being able to anticipate if a potential customer will fit is in some circumstances, a vital component of making a profit.
The ‘maths’ leading to profit
All that has gone before, in Albert’s language, is the definition of the problem. Now we get to the maths, the way in which you apply the leverage.
Most small businesses rush straight to the tools of leverage without due consideration of the nature of the problem they want the tools to solve. However, once defined, pick a tool, or most often a combination of tools that best fits your point of leverage and apply them, recognising that there is no formula to give you the exact right answer. Therefore you need to be prepared to experiment to find the best outcomes. The process of experimenting will also give greater clarity to the 4 questions, which will in turn clarify the point of MML.
The choices you face are multitudinous. Digital, analogue, which social platform, how much should be spent on AdWords, does Facebook work, how to use the automation tools available, what about email, letterbox drops, and so on, and on, and on. 20 years ago, life was much simpler, there were few choices, but there was also very few of the tools available that enabled the identification of the point of MML, so experimenting was far more costly and risky than it is now, to the point where small businesses had very few options. Now you have plenty, the challenge is to use them in the best possible manner.
Good luck, and when you need to draw on deep experience, give me a call.
Header credit: The header cartoon is a repeat of the Tom Gauld cartoon used on the original post
Nov 11, 2022 | Branding, Marketing
“Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing Department”
David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett Packard with Bill Hewlett in 1939 made that observation decades ago.
He was right.
At a time when every customer touchpoint is a marketing opportunity, when algorithms seek out ways to accumulate, dissect, and reassemble data, it is even more true now than it was then.
Every function in an enterprise has a role to play in the position that enterprise holds in the world and in the minds of individuals with whom the product interacts. This building of brand salience goes way beyond the boundaries of the marketing department.
The CEO is the most important marketing person in any enterprise, irrespective of the functional experience. He/she is the one that shapes the culture, and the culture must be marketing in every strand of DNA in the place.
Many non-marketing CEO’s make the mistake of delegating, by inference, not seeing marketing as the primary source of commercial sustainability. To my mind this is not delegation of accountability, rather it is abdication of responsibility by the CEO. The result of this is usually that you end up with the commercial equivalent of lipstick on a pig.
Nov 7, 2022 | Branding, Marketing
Imagine you are faced with the task of joining two pieces of wood.
What information are you likely to need before deciding how to go about the task?
How big and important are the pieces, are they structural weight bearing, is the joint going to be seen, will the choice have a knock-on effect, what is the most efficient joint?
The point is, you need that information before you can then decide how you go about the joining. Do you nail, screw, glue, combine rebate glue and screw, countersink the screw? Without the contextual information, you cannot make an informed decision that will give you the best outcome.
Sometimes this is easy, instantaneous, other times it will require more time and research to get the right answer.
Figuring out your marketing programs is no different.
How are you going to allocate your limited resources across all the possibilities that face you?
Marketing has only one purpose, to generate revenue and resulting margin. Sometimes it is revenue today. Sometimes tomorrow, next month, next year, next decade. If you cannot see a connection between the marketing activity and future revenue, stop now!
The challenge is to know enough to ask informed and intelligent questions and be able to separate the bullshit from the good answers.
This ‘marketing game’ is full of sellers of new shiny toys that are ‘guaranteed’ to be the answer to all your commercial problems, delivering you rivers of cash.
In order to help you separate the bullshit from the reality, there are four questions you can ask to do the separation, which will assist you to see the connections to revenue.
They all are interdependent, none by themselves is of great value, and together they are a powerful way of thinking about your business.
The 4 seem simple at first glance, but in reality, are very complex questions, that in combination will give you the beginnings of an answer. The rest will come with experience and domain knowledge.
- What problem can I solve for a potential customer, or put another way, how do I add value?
- Who is my ideal customer?
- How do I apply maximum marketing leverage?
- How do I make a profit?
When you have the answer to these four questions, you are ready to spend some money.
Not before.
However, once answered, it is never enough to stand still and think the answers tomorrow will be the same as today, and that the answer today is the ideal one. Business is iterative, you learn from doing, experimenting, doing it better next time. It is an evolutionary process, so long as you are careful not to bet the farm on a dud horse. These are all connected to each other, one without the other is of less value, and the impact of answering them all well is not just cumulative, it is compounding.
These four factors, and all the lesser things that hang off them, are compounding.
The twist is that they also compound in reverse, so you must be prepared to try things, but get them off the table quickly when they do not work.
Let me know when I can help.
Header cartoon credit: Tom Gauld www.tomgauld.com
Oct 28, 2022 | Customers, Marketing
The J. Walter Thompson advertising agency is one of the prototypes for the ‘Madmen’ of advertising, the architype of the explosion of consumer advertising that occurred in the sixties.
The agency was started by James Walter Thompson in 1896, when the ‘advertising’ function was nothing more than a brokerage service for selling space in newspapers.
Advertising in those days, well before even radio and consumer magazines, had only newspapers as their communication medium. It slowly expanded into creating the ‘advertising product’ to make selling the space easier into the expanding range of communication options, all on commission.
Simple days.
Most success relies on simple things, breaking down the complex so they are easily understood. So it was with advertising in those early days, before we were blasted by ever increasingly complex offers and intrusive psychological hooks to sell us more stuff.
It is often useful to go back to these roots, to see what made for success early, what were the simple things that worked.
The ‘Thompson T-Square’ is one such tool in copywriting.
Every successful copywriter used it, a few simple questions to focus the mind on what was really important as they wrote the copy. At J. Walter Thompson, it was pinned to the wall of every copywriters office.
What are we selling?
To whom are we selling it?
Where are we selling it?
When are we selling it?
How are we selling it?
Simplistic yes, but also effective, and leading to the ‘four P’s’ of marketing, articulated by E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960.
Those simple questions lead to the consideration of the most effective articulation of value to the ideal customer, who would be receiving the messages in a manner that made them comfortable, and receptive to the idea of a purchase.
So, the simple answer to the question in the header is ‘Yes, every day”, it still works!
The header is an 1868 portrait of James Walter Thompson, courtesy of Wikipedia.
