This Week in Strategy: I just read a King Midas and King Oedipus crossover. It's pure motherfucking gold!
Hi Strat Pack,
Guys! Guys! I don't want to say I found the best video on the internet.....but I would definitely say it's in the top 250. What video, you ask? Why, it's pre-fame Vin Diesel Teaches you Break Dancing of course! This is 143 seconds of pure emotional roller coaster. First you cringe at the explainer portion where you think,"as expected, Vin can't break dance". Then, you revel in the fact that when he gets into it actually he is very light on his feet. Then the video ends. You're left with the feeling (and top comment) that Vin had to choose between the fame and the hair. And he made his choice. What a wild ride. 10/10 would subscribe.
Let's brighten this up. Friends of the newsletter know that I love space. Please click through to watch this 17 second Bloomberg video and marvel at the natural beauty of our universe. The National Solar Observatory has captured the highest resolution video ever of the Sun's surface. Each of the visible "cell-like structures" is about the size of Texas, NSO says. As an aside, it can take literally hundreds of thousands of years for light particles to escape from inside the sun. The universe is so weird/cool.
Alright, stop messing around trying to set Vinnie D's break dancing sensation to Rihanna's Diamonds (diamonds in the sky are...the sun! get it!). Let's jump right in.
The one thing to read this week
1) Your Strategy Needs More Debate [Marco Del Valle - Medium]
What 30 days of interviewing the world’s best debaters taught Marco about being a better strategist.
I was never a particularly good debater. I competed for a few years, got a couple of minor awards, but I never rose above mediocre. Eventually, my coaches sat me down and gave that wall a name. “Marco, you’re not bad at debate — you’re just not good at strategy”. To this day, every time I think of those words, that pit in my stomach comes back. Here’s the thing: I work in strategy. It’s literally my job title! This month, I’ve gone back to my roots, interviewing some of the best debaters, and seeing if I could learn from them now what I couldn’t before.
Strategy is Sacrifice.
“The main rule of strategy is simple: tie it back to the argument, tie it back to the motion. So that’s another thing: each argument solves the same goal. Don’t be afraid to abandon other nice arguments in favor of clarity.” — Francine Malantic, National Quarterfinalist
This spirit of terrible, unrelenting simplicity makes sense in marketing too — once a brand finds its message, its controversy, nothing else matters. After all, we know that the more messages a brand adds into an ad, the fewer people will take out.
Strategy is Adaptation.
"Strategy is a map — you have to understand where you want to go, where you want to take your audience. It’s not just your moves, but theirs, what they’re going to think. Your case needs to encompass their ideas too". - Vivian Garciancano, Debater
In our industry, listening is too often an overlooked skill. So often we focus on our own pitch. Our own brand. Our own point of view. But what happens when a competitor brand makes a move? When a client has a completely different frame in mind? How do we adapt our strategies to the cold realities of the outside world? A speech may be a one-way street, but strategy is a bustling intersection — one we need to learn to navigate.
Strategy is Reframing
You, and your clients, and your consumers, all see the world in very different ways. The trick is to paint the picture of the world in a way that lets you make the work you need to make — and that’s what reframing is all about.
Strategy is Clarity
A key part of this simplicity comes down to the words we use.
Debate’s all very stylistic, I think but my rule of thumb all the time is: would this argument be understood by a fifth grader? - Sally Lee, Debate Champion
But structure is as critical as vocabulary. For many debaters, having a structure for their arguments also helps — a famous template is called HEEL.
At the end of the day, clarity is accountability. Your arguments are in your hands, and only you can put in the effort to make them land.
Debate and strategy have a lot in common, but they are two very different things. Not everything we do is a competition — or a confrontation. Not everyone has to be convinced all the time. If debate’s taught me anything, it’s that no matter how tough it gets, all I have to do is swallow that pit in my stomach, walk up to the podium, and speak.
2) Apple's Original Marketing Philosophies [Geoffrey Colon - LInkedin]
Nike's Page on Principles [Praveen Vaidyanathan - Twitter]
From Geoffrey: I bet most companies if they created this today would produce an unreadable 40 slide deck over 40,000 words...
3) The Departments of No: Secondary Diseases that Kill Innovation [Doug Garnett]
This is a brilliant article and I thoroughly encourage you to read the whole thing. There's so much more here than I was able to summarize.
“Yes is a challenge. Yes means making a commitment. Yes means figuring it out barring all other obstacles and challenges.” Ivy Slater
In business, risk is not merely a business reality. Embracing risk is the only way for a business to succeed and prosper; to avoid risk is to limit your future. Corporations need to embrace the reality that they must innovate to create a future. That means risk is key to their survival. So let’s talk about the departments of “no”.
THE DISEASE: BEST PRACTICES & REVERTING TO THE MEAN.
Best practices like all methods and formulas are primarily popular because when things inevitably fail, there’s built-in plausible deniability — “we used best practices”; “we used the #JTBD method”.
Even worse, best practices often kill innovation. Companies turn “practices” in “laws” — often implemented at the recommendation of the massive consultant industry who reap tremendous profits from putting best practices in place. They are no longer treated as the simple good ideas they should be – but bureaucratic absolutes.
Aren’t best practices, well, best? No. They are the same thing everyone else does — they are average. It’s not possible for something to become a best practice if it’s leading edge.
It gets worse, though. Innovation quite often makes best practices obsolete – and does that very quickly. And here is one of the very serious errors in best practices: they refuse to change quickly — the intent is that they are “best” forever.
Best Practices Revert to the Mean. Read carefully how enthusiasts describe best practices and it’s clear they are the fastest way to make your company/product just like everyone else’s — once something becomes a “best practice” it is entrenchedly average. I sometimes wonder if best practices aren’t one of the reasons US product assortments are becoming more and more bland.
What can be done? Executives have to set the tone for innovation and make it clear that those making new & exciting things must, themselves, design and develop without any hindrance from best practices.
If, in the process of design, innovators step over a best practice then maybe that should be looked at. At that time, the practice police must not be given an upper hand. Unfortunately, in a bureaucracy clear, simple rules too often win out over the messy complexity which is needed to build future company strength.
Companies desperately need innovative new things. A best practice should only be imposed back onto the project IF it is useful.
THE DISEASE: BUDGET FAILURE.
Too many companies also fail to allocate sufficient marketing communication or advertising budget. The myth of the internet is that, somehow, things that used to be expensive are now free. While we clearly know this is false today, the myth remains strong during budgeting and among executives who wish it were true.
Yet well tested marketing understanding knows that a new product entering a market needs at least twice the communication dollars as it will eventually need when it has become established.
One dysfunctional budgeting approach is to demand that marketers promote innovative new products and services within the same budgets that must drive ongoing business. Another happens heavily in public companies where ad budget cuts become the fastest way to hit quarterly or FY-end numbers — killing any momentum the marketing team might have built (or killing any early emergence that is developing).
It is, in fact, incredible short-termism — a habit that seems to have become a way of life at far too many American companies (and at companies around the world from what I hear).
Marketing budgets are just one example of how companies budget their way to innovation failure. Innovation budgets should be allocated separately from departmental budgets. Innovation budgets must include all phases of work required to hit the market driving for success. Those budgets need to be maintained during the first years on the market both to make rapid product improvement and to establish innovation gains in 3-4 years of marketing.
I won’t stop this writing with a depressingly long list of diseases. Over the next few months I’ll post about ways to fight the diseases — even some responses which are easier than we might expect.
That said, I’ve focused on diseases first following Chesterton’s advice: “It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.” G.K. Chesterton
Now that the problems are on the table, solutions come next.
4) Quick Hits: A few articles that are concise, important, interesting, impactful, and I'm not going to write long descriptions for them.
Historic Ad Fraud At Uber With Kevin Frisch [AList Daily] Borrowing the writeup from the inimitable Bob Hoffman: Kevin Frisch, the former head of performance marketing and CRM at Uber, tells the story of how ad fraud (specifically attribution fraud) was headed toward eating $120 million of Uber's $150 million online ad budget. You can find it at the Marketing Today podcast, hosted by the great Alan Hart.
Most marketers have no idea how deeply they're being screwed by online ad fraud. They don't even know where to look. Listening to Frisch tell his story brings it all to life. "We turned off 2/3 of our spend, we turned off 100 million of annual spend out of 150, and basically saw no change..."
And the wonderful thing about his story is that he explains why nobody gave a shit -- not agencies, not marketers -- about how much money was being pissed away. If you want to know what's really going on in online advertising, it's a must listen.‘Put everything in the hands of the influencers’: Inside RXBar’s new influencer strategy [Digiday] RXBar is using influencers like they would an agency. The company is handing over the marketing of its new limited edition flavors to social stars, letting them create the content to promote the flavors and posting it on their channels.
“The intention is put everything in the hands of the influencers,” said Jennie Jones, associate brand manager for RXBar. “Our marketing team is really stepping back and allowing them to have the freedom and control over the marketing, one hundred percent.”
The marketing and sales of the new flavors will be dependent on the work of the influencers, according to Jones, who explained that RXBar isn’t putting any paid media dollars, not even to promote the influencers’ content, behind the initiative. The company is also not promoting the new flavors on its owned channels.
What an absolute dumpster fire of quick hits this week. I had some other, actually positive articles to include as well, but, damn. I'm watching the industry and the discipline that I'm (genuinely!) passionate about utterly and completely fly off the rails. I actually thought the Ice Tea RXBar Work was good too. Nailed the RTB. The influencer idea? Developed in-house, of course. At least after listening to the Uber podcast I can understand why they're disillusioned with Paid media.
5) Department of Great Work
Please, I need some great work to get through the rest of the week.
Why This Brewer Let Other Brands Take Over Its Bottle Caps [Muse by Clio] "The Beer Cap Project," is an initiative in which Colombian brewer Aguilla is letting other brands like UberEats, KFC, Papa John's, the Hard Rock Café, Uber and Cabify put their own branded caps on bottles. Turns out it's a responsible-drinking campaign. All the brands involved are food, water or transportation brands. Food and water help mitigate the effects of alcohol, and brands like Uber and Cabify, of course, help you get home without driving after a night on the town. What's more, the caps offer discounts on products and services from the featured brands, making it more appealing to make good choices while drinking. From MullenLowe SSP3 and media agency Zenith
Lego Turned Kids’ Playtime Ideas Into a Blockbuster Movie Trailer [AdWeek] Lego’s newest ad, designed for vertical formats like Instagram, is a blockbuster movie trailer made up entirely of ideas proposed by kids while playing with a Lego City Police set. While Lego hasn’t released any production details for the ad, which debuted on Instagram, the spot seems to have been created in-house by The Lego Agency. I love this work, I think it's great.
PlayStation Gets to the Heart of Gaming in Gripping Film from Romain Gavras [Little Black Book] I fondly remember remember the palm-sweaty terror of playing Resident Evil 2 during middle school sleepovers at two in the morning. I really like that this film captures the essence of what its like to be a gamer. Ant Nelson and Mike Sutherland, ECDs at adam&eveDDB said: "‘Feel the Power of PlayStation’ aims to give the viewer a taste of the overwhelming visceral power you can feel when playing on a PlayStation 4 console. Working with Sony Interactive Entertainment, we wanted to create a mysterious film that reminds fans of the thrilling and heart-racing moments they can experience when gaming.” Item as described. From adam&eveDDB
WhatsApp launches its first brand campaign in the world [AdLand] The campaign reinforces the company's positioning: more than a messaging app, WhatsApp allows users to establish real connections through private communication and empower their communities.WhatsApp chose Brazil to launch its first brand campaign in the world. The first film of the campaign "Fica só entre vocês" (“It’s between you”) tells the story of a community that got together on WhatsApp to help a samba school that loses all allegories in a fire ahead of Carnival. Through the app, members of a rival school organize to collect donations and help rebuild their warehouse. The film is 8 minutes long and I was here for all of it. From AlmapBBDO
No Need to Fly – Around the World in Germany [D&D awards] I came across this 2019 campaign for German rail on Twitter this week. and think its wonderful. The campaign is simple but wildly impactful (IMO). A side-by-side comparison: One side shows a foreign travel destination; the other a look-alike destination in Germany for just 19€. How do we give this idea relevance & attention on Facebook? With data and technology. Click through, watch the case video. It's great. From Ogilvy
One final note: I think we've all seen Burger King's Moldy Whopper. Of course I have an opinion on it. I think it's a very interesting way in, definitely way outside category norms, and creatively compelling. But I think it's an ad built for ad industry professionals, not the general public. I asked a few non-ad people and found that unaided awareness of "McDonald's burgers don't rot" (or a variant) after BK exposure was around 30%, for ad people that number was closer to 75%. Are the people I know that work in the industry just smarter? Maybe! But even more so, I think it's a...tough sell to say that this campaign is going to create an association in people's minds between the Whopper and fresh, delicious food.
As a PR stunt, of course, it's very smart. It's getting a bonkos amount of earned media. And Machado himself told Forbes that doing these types of campaigns are a “dollar multiplier” in his media platform. Then again, he's the CMO of a giant multinational company and I'm just an asshole in front of a keyboard. So, there's that.
6) Platform Updates
Only one platform update this week: Uber "turned off 2/3 of our spend, we turned off 100 million of annual spend out of 150, and basically saw no change..."
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with online attribution and digital ad targeting.
(or something like that)
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