This Week in Strategy: The CEO of IKEA was just elected president of Sweden. He should have his cabinet together by the end of the week.
Hi Strat Pack,
I have not watched the new Fran Lebowitz documentary on Netflix yet, but I plan on doing so this weekend. But I have read this delightful New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs "Fran Lebowitz's One-Star Amazon Reviews" which I highly recommend checking out. (Thanks to longtime friend-of-the-newsletter Christian for sending this link along!) I feel this one for Rubik’s Cube (Hasbro) strongly:
"You finish it. Now what? Congratulations, you have a slightly more attractive cube."
Hard pivot: how much Guitar Hero did you play in college? I played so much. Like honestly the summer between 2007-2008 consisted of happy hours at Froggy Bottom Pub (if you're ever in DC, and not feeling particularly classy, you should 100% go), and then once prices returned to non-happy hour, heading over to my friends place to play Guitar Hero. Or maybe Rock Band?. It was great. So when I came across this article The Oral History of 'Guitar Hero', I was instantly intrigued. It's super fascinating, it has absolutely nothing to do with my experiences. But it’s a really good read and you should check it out.
Conversely, I saw this headline in my Twitter feed Sorry, Millennials, MGMT Is Now Dad Rock and all I have to say about this is, fuck you man! I've got Boomers telling me that the reason I'm a financial disaster is because of my proclivity for avocado toast, and now I've got Gen Z giving me another "Sorry Millennials" take. Fuck off! The 'magazine' you write for is just the branded content arm of Dollar Shave Club. You're just a cog, Justin Longo, like me. Not a journalist. I'm keeping my hipster beard extra unkempt just to spite your company!
Alright well that was quite enough of that. Stop messing around trying to figure out how buried in the basement your Guitar Hero setup is. Let's jump right in.
The one thing to read this week
1) Gartner Survey Shows 73% of CMOs Will Fall Back on Low Risk, Low Return Strategies for 2021 [Gartner]
Seventy-three percent of chief marketing officers (CMOs) report they will rely on existing customers to fuel growth in 2021, rather than looking to develop new markets, according to Gartner, Inc. The inaugural Gartner CMO Strategic Priorities Survey 2021 shows that 39% of CMOs plan to increase sales of existing products to existing customers, while 34% will introduce new products to existing customers in 2021 (see Figure 1).
However, this low-risk approach, while warranted given the tumultuous year of 2020, is at odds with CMOs desire to reinvent and rescale key strategies developed over the course of the last year.
“Focusing on existing customers has a number of benefits for CMOs, namely being low cost and low risk. But low risk is matched by relatively low return,” said Jay Wilson, vice president analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice. “At the same time, we see CMOs being overly ambitious in terms of the change they expect to bring to how their organizations interact with customers. With the scale of recent change organizations have experienced as a result of COVID-19, CMOs must take care to ensure their own strategic approach is matched to the enterprise’s aspirations.”
2) Want a job? Pretend you believe in ‘digital marketing’ [Marketing Week]
Mark Ritson puts together a fun article on how to answer questions the *right* way in order to get the job. There's a lot more in the article, but my favorite questions/answers are below:
It’s a classic career conundrum for so many senior marketers entering 2021 without a permanent role. They are senior, expert and experienced enough to know that digital is a crucial part of the playbook, but not the playbook itself. But around half the jobs they are attracted to are written by people that do not know this, and who are actively looking for “digital marketers” to fill “marketing manager” roles.
A job interview is a shitty place to try and educate the organisation considering recruiting you. Softly, softly catchy the career monkey. So my sincere advice is to go against your best instincts during the recruitment process and then, with job secured and feet under table, attempt to right the ship with some strategic heft and proper marketing knowledge.
Q: A big part of the role will involve social media marketing and developing the kind of content that creates a dialogue with our customer base. We see this as the big part of Acme’s marketing challenge. Do you feel ready to manage that kind of work?
Correct answer: 2008 called, they want their clichés back. Anyone that still clings to the idea that organic social media is going to replace paid, targeted communications has missed a whole decade of effectiveness lessons.
I really want to step back from ‘social media’ and take you to digital media where we can move from naïve, organic attempts to engage consumers to a more deliberate, targeted approach to communications. Then I want to step back even further and acknowledge that even digital advertising is still only half of most companies’ ad spend.
I’d want to look at all the possible communications options – from outdoor to radio to anything. And it’s not about picking the best option. I know from my experience that blending these tools into a diverse mix will almost always give Acme way better impact than just doing ‘social media marketing’. But I would only do that once we had the targeting, positioning, objectives and rough budget in place. Because these decisions will drive the best communications channels.
Prudent answer: So ready! I look around at brands still wasting money on outdated traditional media and I despair. Marketing is no longer about talking at consumers. It’s about talking with them. Using content.
And while we are at it, these are not consumers. These are humans. I want to use content to connect with these people at a human level. I want these humans to understand Acme and its range of industrial welding products on an interactive, emotional level. And I see social media marketing as exactly the right route.
Q: One of the most important traits we look for in our marketers is agility. How agile are you?
Correct answer: I appreciate the need to have flex between the strategy and the eventual execution. I don’t think any strategic plan ends up being run exactly as intended. And if we have learned anything from 2020 it is that we have to be agile in the face of gigantic events.
But so often I see agility as an excuse for no strategy. For no planning. It becomes a big mess of hot desking, bananas org charts and a complete lack of long-term direction. I am agile to a point. But I am strategic too. And you definitely want me to be both.
Prudent answer: Super fucking agile. They used to call me ‘The Cat’ in my last role because I was so fluid and ephemeral. I still see companies developing annual plans – annual?! I literally don’t know what I will do next week never mind next year. I plan on a daily basis. Always changing direction. Always responding in real time to the changes in the market. The only consistency is my complete lack of consistency. Today’s key insight is tomorrow’s limitation. Show me a scrum and I’m happy. Or am I?
Q: Who is your marketing hero?
Correct answer: The consumer. I think we are a humble discipline. We serve the market and our role is to respect and learn from them. Rather than gurus and experts, the best place for marketers to learn is from the consumer. I make them my heroes.
Prudent answer: Gary Vaynerchuck. He is a visionary on so many marketing topics and also a personal inspiration. I remember him once saying: “The biggest thing I can tell you is that you have to make as much content as possible.” Profound.
3) A year's worth of strategy lessons and ideas in one deck [Brendan Brown - LinkedIn]
Oh man this is great. 246 slides of such smart thinking. This should be your go to for every brief.
My personal favorite is slide 109:
4) Quick Hits: It's Trends Week!
Wunderman Thompson Future 100 [JWT Intelligence] I've always liked the JWT trends reports. They're good fodder. Cautious optimism sets the pace for 2021 as the world reflects on the challenges of 2020 and enters a hopeful year of economic rebound and societal healing. The best part? It's free!
The Meta Trending Trends: 2021 [Matt Klein - On Advertising] Who needs JWT trends when you have meta trending trends! Klein works at sparks+honey which is a trends shop I have great affinity for. Basically what he did is went through seemingly every trends report available, and organized them for us into these mega/macro trends. It's useful. Good for brief research or generally keeping abreast of the world
Connecting the dots [GlobalWebIndex] From GWI "Our crystal-ball view of consumer trends for 2021. We’ve crunched the latest numbers and plucked out the trends that matter. Here’s what you need to know about the year ahead." From me: Yeah I perused and this is definitely good to have in the files. It's not treading any new ground really but there are good data points in here if you need them
5) Department of Great Work
Disclaimer: The Super Bowl is next week (Already!) and I'm planning on covering a lot of that work then. Here's some non-SB stuff, and I think it's really good this week!
A Curious Girl Meets a Mythical Monster in Apple’s Escapist Chinese New Year Film from Lulu Wang [Little Black Book] Apple always knocked it out of the park in the their CNY work. This year is no exception. The Nian is a fearsome beast. It lives in the mountains and under the sea, coming out only to feed on people. But though the Nian has bulging eyes, huge horns and terrifying teeth, it’s also a mainstay of Chinese New Year imagery. After all the word Nian in Chinese also means year – and some say that the drums, firecrackers and lion dances associated with the Lunar New Year are all about shooing away the ferocious monster. But in Apple’s 2021 Chinese New Year film, the story of the Nian gets a new twist. The 11-minute epic follows a curious little girl who isn’t willing to take the tales of the ravenous, intimidating beast at face value. And, wouldn’t you know it, the pair become friends. From TBWA\Media Arts Lab Shanghai and Iconoclast
Shopping carts turn 'evil' in prank promoting car insurance [AdAge] I have to admit, this was one of the more enjoyable case studies I've watched this year. Insurer DNB set up "evil" shopping carts with minds of their own across Oslo parking lots. The carts were fitted with remote control and hidden speakers, to make them spookily move on their own and also sound as if they were crashing into cars. It then caught the reactions of unsuspecting shoppers on camera. From Agency Try-Oslo. Very good.
Ikea muscles in on the Bernie Sanders meme with a ‘get the look’ ad [The Drum] Ikea has capitalised on the biggest meme of 2021 – an image of Bernie Sanders bundled up in his mittens at the president Biden’s inauguration. It's good. From Ogilvy Greece (though there's some discussion on LinkedIn about whether this was a spec spot or not...)
Leica Celebrates Photography With Its First Global Campaign In A Decade [DesignTaxi] The campaign, The World Deserves Witness, celebrates the commitment of photographers who managed to capture pivotal moments of history or small intimate stories through their unique views. The campaign features existing visuals with the brand’s logo printed on it and a one-minute video with American photographer Joel Meyerowitz providing the voiceover. From TBWA\Paris
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