Transforming Yourself & Your Organization for An Age of Re-Invented Marketing
Earlier today, I presented to 500 attendees at the P&G Alumni Conference in Cincinnati. Since I speak without slides or notes and there were several requests for a summary, here is a remembered version.
It is somewhat ironic that I am at the place where modern marketing was born and where working for one of Procter and Gamble’s agencies, I learned marketing in your former place of work, that I am here today to speak about re-invented marketing and what we have all have to do to transform ourselves and our organizations.
Has marketing been re-invented?
Absolutely ! And many of the things we were taught and guided us have shifted dramatically and have left us and our organizations less relevant.
Gods not Consumers: We always were told that we needed to focus and listen to customers and find ways to enable and empower them. We planned media to reach them. But today with new digital technologies and social networks people are already empowered and enabled and in fact have God like power. They are media themselves and they start campaigns and we react to them. Marketing will be even more important in the future because marketing is understanding and meeting people’s requirements and as they get more powerful, marketing becomes more important.
Brands matter but the old ways we built Brands matter less: Brands are the ultimate navigation devices in a world of fragmentation and the value of Brands are increasing. However, the way brands are built is changing. Its less about communication and media and advertising, and much more about utilities, services and experiences. Advertising in the Western World is in long term secular decline as people do not just eliminate, skip and block ads but increasingly spend more and more time in ad-free environments like Netflix. Scott Galloway the NYU professor rightly has said that “advertising is a tax that poor people have to pay”. We now need to create great experiences, jaw dropping design, convenient utilities and satisfying services and let people talk about them. While we are in an age of secular decline of advertising we are in a renaissance of marketing.
Scale matters but not the scale we know: For many years scale was a moat. Media spending bought out key channels and created frequency and reach. Big budgets ensured slotting allowances. Huge factories allowed for reduced costs. But today, most of this bulk driven scale is not as advantageous as the scale of data and the scale of networks. It is this new scale that Facebook, Google and Amazon leverage and that enable a Dollar Shave Club to offset the old scale advantages of established firms by using search, social, compelling content that spreads, Amazon web services and other ways to build businesses.
Capital is cheap but Talent rare: Most successful companies attracted talent as the best people fought to work at the Procter and Gambles and GE’s of the world. This is still true in places like China and India but in many developed markets attracting and retaining talent, rather than access to capital is key obstacle. We seem to still be operating in yesterday’s model. Why find ways to reduce the cost of people just when you need great people and partners the most? Yes, one needs to be more productive but this means more with less and not necessarily more for less! The “way” we were all taught and the “dues we paid” are increasingly irrelevant and uninspiring for much of today’s top talent.
These changes in people’s behavior, the ways brands are built and what scale means and how talent is inspired in a new world, will shift even more profoundly as we enter the Third Connected Age.
The Third Connected Age
The first connected age emerged in the early 90s with the advent of the web browser. In this era the key connection point was a link and the company that best monetized the link was Google and it gave birth to the power of search.
The second connected age occurred ten years ago with the advent of the smart phone and social networks where we were connected to everyone and everything. Apple monetized the phone best and Facebook the social network.
Not surprisingly, 3 of the 5 most valuable companies today are Facebook, Google and Apple.
We are now at the dawn of the third connected age where there will be three new forms of connections besides the link, mobility, and social, which have already re-invented marketing since peoples’ behaviors and potential have already changed profoundly. These are:
AI: Artificial Intelligence is data connecting to data and writing algorithms. Today, a third of Amazon sales and two thirds of Netflix watching are based on their recommendation algorithms. Co-relation between data sets that allow machines to learn is a big part of our future.
IOT: Here things connect to things. Not just small things but consider your phone connecting to an automobile when you use Uber or Lyft. These things bring along some carbon-based objects, which is you connected to the phone and the driver connected to the car!
New ways to connect: Voice is a new way to connect and engage as are Augmented and Virtual and Mixed reality. There will be new ways to connect and tell stories.
Transforming our organizations
To succeed in this new marketing era, we must recognize that our companies have been optimized for the past. The future does not fit in the containers of the past and we must re-configure our organizations to succeed.
What do modern successful firms look like in this connected age?
People obsessed: These companies are obsessed about people. People who they sell and provide services to, as well as the talent in their organization. They do not just react and listen to people but they anticipate. They gain prescience by seeing patterns either via algorithms or just looking and connecting the dots. It was prescience that helped Apple and Facebook and Google become what they are.
Friction Free: Wherever there are people there is drama. Everything is easy but people come in the way. There is no need for the customer to see how the hot dog is made. Hide the complexity. How to ensure that the internal friction of a company is reduced? Align and incentivize the right behaviors ! If you understand someone’s incentives you can predict behaviors. No use talking about collaboration if you are incentivizing competition. Press releases about innovation without significant budgets backing them is nothing but bullshit and all your people ( and partners) know…
Modular: In a connected age, we can expect people to connect best of breed. No single company can do it all. We are living in an age where everything is first unbundled and then re-bundled (customized) around specific needs. We no longer buy CD’s or even songs but rather put together playlists on Spotify customized to our mood and occasion. We need to ensure we are ready for modularity.
Seamless: Make your company easy to engage with. Make your systems API ( Application Protocol Interface…the only technical term in this paper) friendly. Make one person responsible for a relationship who can orchestrate a solution.
Data Driven Storytellers: Good stories will often beat good spreadsheets, but a great story and a great spread sheet combined are unbeatable. Modern organizations understand that data is critical as oil but the value is in the refining with insights and the extra additives that make the data truly move with stories and more. Spreadsheets themselves are a terrible window into the future.
Today, every firm should start with a blank sheet of paper and keep the above criteria in mind as filters, while limiting themselves with only two constraints. The first is to be lawful and second ,whatever is developed should show a path to breakeven within 3 years. Then go invent something that puts you out of business ! If you come up with something that frightens you make sure you do it , or you will have your “Dollar Shave Club “ reckoning the way Gillette had theirs.
Transforming Ourselves
Companies work hard to transform and many times these require significant M&A and organizational changes to ensure the company can be more efficient, work with greater agility and reflect reality. But while these are often necessary they are not sufficient because one has to address the big area of people and talent. Eventually companies only transform by changing the people or changing people’s mindsets. Since I myself, prefer remaining employed, as many of us do, we need to transform ourselves to remain relevant ( and employed).
Here are three suggestions on upgrading yourself.
1.Address the Fear of the 4Cs: Today we fear Change. We worry about our own Competence. We fear Cannibalization. And sometimes we work in fearful Cultures.
All of us are human. Change sucks. It requires us to learn new things and like all beginners we look stupid! As a result the more successful and senior we are, the more we resist. But, if we want things to stay the same for our career trajectory, the more we will have to change !
We wonder whether we are competent and our skills our relevant. Some of our skills remain valuable and others have to be unlearnt and some new ones added. If you do not invest in learning and training you will become obsolete.
All of us often know what the right thing to do is. But new products and service ideas are likely to cannibalize todays cash cows and cash flows. The choice is easy. Cannibalize yourself or let someone cannibalize you. While it is not pretty ( or tasty) if you cannibalize yourself, at least you will remain alive !
And finally, many of us work in cultures that sometimes do not allow one to speak up and challenge the status quo. Make sure it is the culture and not you who are afraid. If it is the culture go to management and ask them to address it. If they do not, you should plot your exit since fearful cultures are unlikely to succeed in todays connected and increasing transparent age in attracting talent.
2.Do less. Learn and Recognize more: One of the biggest challenges in today’s fast moving workplace is how to find the time to learn new skills and to think about the impact of changes that we all face. Senior management in particular is always busy.
Truth is most of this busy work is just motion. Motion and commotion that we initiate. Meetings we call. Emails we fire off as if we have ADD.
Learn to be still.
As a leader why not become an on demand or just in time service? Delegate everything you can and wait for people to call you when you are needed. You will find three things. First, your people will get better and grow and their people will also get better and grow. Second, you will be called into places where you add genuine value versus being the senior person who is needed for any meeting to proceed. Get over yourself. People are genuflecting to your title and not to you. Finally, you will free up time to learn and to observe and to see patterns. Get out of your in box and to do list. They are colonizing your mind and destroying your creativity and slowly corroding your relevance.
3.Recognize that while you are living in a digitally dominated, silicon based, constantly computing world, you are a carbon based, analog created, confused feeling person , as are the people who work for you and you sell to: Blaise Pascal said “we choose with our hearts and we use numbers to justify what we just did”. People follow emotions and stories and not just facts. In an age of machines, let this advanced math major assure you that we are no match for the computing and display and algorithm capabilities of machines. So, stop fetishizing just numbers and digital and technology. Joan Didion wrote “we tell ourselves stories in order to live”. Lead with your humanity and combine the math with meaning. The spreadsheets with the stories. The data with the insight.
And you will soar as you always have and write the new story of marketing.
What Art Has Got To Do With It
My initial answer was not much but that I loved reading, movies and going to museums.
A few days later thinking about his question, I decided art has everything to do with many aspects of work, particularly in spurring innovation.
I define innovation as “fresh insightful connections”. For more please check out…https://rishadt.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/becoming-innovative/
Art truly serves as a catalyst to innovation in at least four ways. Each of these feed fresh thinking, insights or the ability to see connections. First, artists transform beauty out of materials or words or a point of view by connecting things in new combinations to illustrate the reality of being human. Second, art particularly the written arts allows you to be in the mind of somebody else, allowing you to feel and understand from a different perspective and therefore gain insights. Third, art teaches you to see or shows you how to see in fresh new ways. And finally, the arts can be used to help communicate and make a point better than stating it directly.
To illustrate this I will use how I learned something new or had a thesis underlined by three “artistic incidents” over the past week.
1. Photos that ask you to see differently: This week Chicago had one of its pleasanter days and I decided to walk over to the Art Institute of Chicago at lunch time. The walk through Millenium park is beautiful and as a member of the Art Institute I try to get in a lunch visit monthly and spend time in a new exhibit or favorite gallery. On this day there was an exhibit of photography in the Modern Wing by a Los Angles artist named Uta Barth.
Ms Barth leverages photography in a novel way to get you to both see what you may not have seen but as importantly to make you forget what you are looking at but be aware of the resultant feeling.
Her work which can be simple as conveying the feeling of light on a curtain or a shadow on a kitchen wall is inspired by a line from Robert Irwin which goes…“Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees”.
My takeaway was to a heightened sense of awareness to everything we see or miss seeing around us. While this clarity may lead to a more sensitive life, it can also open us to the phrase or snippet or number that can be the seed of an idea. Often it is in the crevices and niches of a flow of data and verbiage that the pearl lies.And by seeing without putting things into containers and pre-concieved notions we see anew.
To enjoy more of Uta Barth’s here is a gallery: #mce_temp_url#
2. How Poetry helped inform me about what is personal and how to think about privacy and how people use social media :David Orr is a poetry critic for the New York Times who has recently published a book called “Beautiful and Pointless”. In the opening chapter titled “the personal” he seeks to show how “private” and “personal” are two very different things.
David provides a list of sentences:
Bob Smith was born on November 9, 1971.
Bob Smith’s favorite password is “nutmeg456”
Bob Smith’s Social Security number is 987-65-4320
Bob Smith has a foot fetish.
As a child, Bob Smith had an imaginary friend named Mr Pigwort.
Whenever Bob Smith hears the sound of a high wind, it makes him think of his wife, who died ten years earlier, and he hears her voice faintly calling, as if from a great distance.
He notes that the first three sentences contain deeply private information but they don’t seem personal like the last three.
Mr Orr then states:
“The point here is that our conception of “the personal” has to do more than the data of our lives, no matter how sensitive. It has to do with how we see ourselves, how we see others, how we imagine others see us, how they actually see us, and the potential embarrasment, joy, and shame that occur at the intersection of these different perspectives”
More insight and wisdom about how people may relate to social media in that sentence than all the conferences and privacy seminars that are filled with braying experts!
3. How a 50 year old French classic reminded me about leadership: This Memorial weekend it rained a great deal and I took advantage of being indoors by re-watching two of my favorite films by Francois Truffaut. One of these was “The 400 Blows” which gave birth to “new wave” film making and is a story about a young boy in a hostile world.
There are many amazing scenes in the movie including its classic ending freeze frame. One scene that is both hilarious and telling is one where students have to follow a gym teacher on a run along the streets of Paris. Furiously blowing a whistle, running ahead of all his students, and oblivious to them the teacher does not realize that all his followers are peeling away from him.How many times do leaders bark out orders and run ahead to storm the hill without bringing their teams along with them ? Either emotionally by “following but not really following” or physically by leaving and finding other jobs some of the most talented folks leave the pack. Do leaders recognize that in their urgency to move ahead and win at all costs they risk losing the people they most need? Check out the short segment…
via youtube.com
My original answer to my flight companion continues to be true. I watch movies, read books including poetry and go to musuems because i love doing so and find it fun and fullfilling. But while it makes life better, I also believe it makes my work life stronger.
I encourage folks to embrace the arts because not only does it remind us that it is life we are living but it can make work so much more meaningful.
8 Management Lessons from A Great Boss
On Wednesday this week we will gather to mark the retirement of Jack Klues from the Publicis Groupe.
In a 35 plus year career, Jack spun out Leo Burnett Media into Starcom, managed its merger with Mediavest to form Starcom Mediavest Group, oversaw Publicis Groupe Media which combined Zenith Optimedia and SMG after being acquired by Publicis and along with David Kenny at first and then alone, headed VivaKi which combined Publicis Groupe’s media assets and the digital giants Digitas and Razorfish.
When he stepped down as CEO at the end of 2012 to take on a six-month transitory stint as VivaKi’s Chairman, VivaKi accounted for nearly 40 percent of Publicis Groupe revenue and over 60% of its growth. Jack was also the only American on a five member Publicis Board of Directors.
And as a last act he along with Maurice Levy, re-engineered VivaKi despite its success to position it for the next few years in a networked global world where collaboration will be an essential requirement since no one company will be able to do it all.
Not bad for a guy from Quincy Illinois.
I have worked directly for Jack for the past 15 years Jack has become not just a boss but also a mentor and a friend. Most importantly he taught me, as he has done so many others, some of the most important management lessons. Here are a few:
1. There is no substitute for hard work: Jack was always on and always in. He is wickedly smart but does not rest on his laurels and is continuously involved and focused on work. (While making sure he always spent time with his priority one his family) . He never called it in. Tim Ferris and all those books of 4-hour workweeks and stuff are full of absolute shit. If you want to do well you have to work your butt off. Period. Even if you are supposedly smart.
2. Constantly learn and keep upgrading your skills: One of the things Jack had me do every four or five months was to organize a “mind expanding trip” to expose him to people, firms, concepts that he had never seen or thought off. From Atom Shockwave Films, who were a pioneer in digital video and flash animation production a decade ago to Blue Fin Labs long before anyone knew who they were to folks whose sole mission was to destroy our business model, he saw and learned from them all.
3. Integrity and your word is everything: Jack hates losing. But he will not win at any cost. Integrity, fair play, transparency are his touchstones. If he makes a commitment he will keep it. No ifs or buts.
4. Be accessible and encourage challenges: A case can be made that Jack was one of the three most powerful and busiest men at Publicis Groupe, but you could always see him and tell him what was on your mind. If you were a student, a start up, a nitwit or someone who wanted to sell him an idea, he always found time to meet folks. There were no chiefs of staffs or bevy of executive assistants to shoo away people. His belief was it was essential for him to learn, to listen, to be available. Most importantly he encouraged people to challenge him. You always respected Jack but you never feared Jack.
5. Always take ideas to Clients and always tell them what you think: Jack loves Clients and getting involved in their business. He always was thinking about ideas for them and while very respectful often told them very inconvenient truths. He respects Clients but he cared that they respect him.
6. Your success is mostly not because of you: Jack believes that his success was due to a combination of many factors a majority that had little to do with him. First, it was the talent around him. Second, it was the company he was working for (Jack always kept company first and never became bigger than the company), third it was the prestige of the Clients he got to do work with and finally a lot of it was pure luck and timing. To this day, I never take any body that believes they are superstars who have achieved it all them selves seriously. Never forget where you came from and all those who helped you.
7. Celebrate the team and make stars of your people: Jack has over the years nurtured hundreds of talented people who he not only gave opportunities to but also put them in the spotlight. His belief was the more people he made stars around him it reflected not only the reality of their contributions, but allowed him to attract even more great folks
8. Put others first. Be Generous: Jack always thinks of others. He also gives back to charity like the Off The Street Club and to the University of Illinois among others. It’s never about Jack. It’s about the team and The Company.
Let me end with a story.
About 11 years ago we were involved in a critical pitch. Due to weather all flights had been cancelled from Chicago and Jack had got a private plane to fly us out from Urbana Champaign. I finished attending my elder daughters middle school graduation late in the evening and caught a train to Urbana where I arrived at a fog bound station at midnight.
In the gloom of the deserted station sat Jack Klues who said, “ After this long trip I thought you would need a ride to the hotel”
The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past
This is the infamous “flying cockroaches” keynote from the 4A’s Transformation Summit where I make the case that a) marketing is a huge growth industry, b) Partnership and collaboration is key c) Companies that are “one-stop” are selling mounds of mediocrity and d) we have to inspire, ignite and invent a new generation of talent!
The Six things Clients Want
I have had the privilege of working with some of the finest companies. Yesterday, as I heard input from a Client on what they value and expect most from outside partners, it struck me that across industries, across the world and across client sizes, everyone is asking pretty much for the same six things.
Three of these are outputs and three focus on how the partner works.
Outputs: Insights, Ideas, Inspiration.
Process: Collaboration, Iteration, Operating Discipline
1. Insights: Clients pay the highest premium in not just economic value but their attention and their admiration to firms that bring them insights about their customers or their business. I have seen businesses saved and businesses poached away by firms that could provide a new way of understanding the marketplace. Something that is so obvious and yet not obvious. If we are living in an age where consumers are in control, understanding them is critical.
2.Inspiration: Agencies and outside partners see a world different than a Client. Most work across different industries and have a different employee mix. Clients in these changing times want to know how they benchmark against the best. Not just their industry, but across industries. Showing them examples, taking them to conferences, bringing in outside experts, all speak to this hunger, while underlining that their partners are in touch with changes happening around them.
3.Ideas: In the end despite debate as to whether Clients pay adequately for ideas, it is clear that Clients care a lot about ideas and without a good flow of them it is hard for an outside partner to remain valuable. Even if a Client does not buy the ideas, the inability to present ideas, including ones that stretch and are out there, often is reason for the Clients eye to wander. Best partners provide “gifts” of a big idea or two every few months.
While insight, inspiration and ideas are the wings of a healthy partnership, there are some processes or ways of working that are as important and often can carry a relationship when the ideas, insights and inspiration are wanting or can challenge a partnership when not present even if ideas, inspiration and insights are flowing.
4.Collaboration: Clients hate (and it is not to strong a word) the lack of collaboration between their various partners and agencies. They resent having to baby sit grownups who cannot play together. They see the friction as a loss of time and economic value. As industries blur in the digital world and many partners all claim expertise or rights to the same area ( e.g. “social”) this has become an obsession with Clients. The words “childish”, “soap-operatic” and ” I wish I could dump the whole lot and start again” are heard. Yes, often the Client’s incentives and structures encourage the petty and insecure behavior we engage in when our turf emotions and short term economic incentives make us forget the big picture. The big picture is that clients are trying to build economic value of their brands via insights, ideas and inspiration and frankly will reward for that.
5. Improvement and Iteration:In a world of change is the outside partner improving themselves. Are they remaining curious, challenging the status quo and remaining curious, cutting costs, becoming more productive? Clients are under intense pressure to enhance productivity and are looking for their partners to become more productive themselves. This is not just about cutting costs but also developing better creative, re-using ideas from one part of the globe in an other, eliminating or automating things that can be.
6. Operating Discipline:This is the least sexy and interesting part of what Clients want because in many ways they expect it. Can their partner actually run their own business by managing budgets, schedules, legal clearances and the like. Are they responsiveness and do they staff with capable people. Can the agency or partner make the trains run on time, read the signals and ensure the engine stays on track? The wrong ad shipped to the wrong media company, lack of legal approval and non responsiveness in an emergency get folks fired all the time.
Every quarter or six months it behooves anyone serving a Client to ask themselves and then their clients:
1. What ideas, insight or outside inspiration and stimulation did we provide?
2. How can I be more collaborative, how can I get my Client to help me be more collaborative?
3. What specifics can I share with the Client as to how I improved my offerings and services recently?
The big benefits of a healthy relationship of trust, respect, wealth and a true partnership ensue as a result of being able to deliver on the six clients wants over time.
Rishad Tobaccowala ( @rishad ) is the author of the bestselling “Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data” published by Harper Collins globally in January 2020. It has been described as an “operating manual” for managing people, teams and careers in the age we live in.