“Does Marketing now have final say over everything that happens here?”
(Program director)
“Well, we both know that Marketing is everything.”(Executive-level marketing professional)
(Program director)
“Well, we both know that Marketing is everything.”(Executive-level marketing professional)
No, not part of the same conversation—interestingly enough!
The program director was irritated because the marketing team had taken issue with the proposed positioning of her event. The marketing professional was describing a sense that his marketing background was what made him a strong strategy consultant.
Both were talking to me, at different times and in entirely different contexts.
In the first case, it wasn’t so much that anyone thought that Marketing (capital M, meaning the department) had the final say on every topic. Rather, Marketing felt in this specific instance that the program team had created an event description that revealed more about their own intent (“learn more about us and enroll in our program”) than it did about what the participants would have wanted out of the day (“a family-friendly, fun, free community event”). Marketing felt that the program team had made a common and correctable oversight. In their zeal to get the job done, the program team hadn’t considered that they were communicating their desires—and that in allowing this message to override the customers’ desires they might even discourage participation. They hadn’t realized that in creating an experience of what the consumer wanted (fun, family-friendly, etc.) they were at least as likely to get what they wanted (enrollments).
Marketing wasn’t trying to take control. Rather, Marketing was attempting to improve the organization’s chances of succeeding on both counts.
Plenty of marketing has the (cynicism-provoking) reputation it deserves. There’s a lot of perfunctory work out there, created by well-meaning individuals but far too formulaic for my taste. On the other hand, there’s some really good work out there, too.
Setting aside the obvious, like distinguishing features from benefits, superb positioning, innovative branding, and effective media buying, the marketing executive I quoted above was describing something more strategic than what we usually think of as marketing; that is, the kind of marketing that years ago prompted one of my product manager colleagues to complain that our company's entire marketing department could go away (me excepted, of course) and nobody would notice.
So how can you know everything-marketing from not-everything marketing? Here’s a checklist.
1. Everything-marketing refuses to stay in the box. The marketer is interested in the business you’re in. He or she asks you a question or challenges an assumption that changes what and how you think (or thought) about your business, or your business challenge—and it’s relevant to the marketing challenge. And he/she can explain how it's relevant.
2. Everything-marketing represents the consumer. Good marketing is empathic. Good marketers inhabit the consumer mindset and project it onto their work. They channel the natural curiosity (and cynicism) of consumers. They do market research, formal or informal. They don't jump on bandwagons until they're ready. They aren’t afraid to ask the questions that take you aback, like, “Why is this exciting?” and “Who really cares?” They use the answers not to antagonize (which they often do) but to help you make better products and services—and to create more effective marketing.
3. Everything-marketing makes complete sense, but it’s not necessarily something that you could have articulated without seeing it. In the 1980s John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company (long since de-mutualized and now called John Hancock Financial Services) undertook a rigorous review of its advertising. Famous for a slogan they hadn't used in years (“Put your John Hancock on a John Hancock life insurance policy”) and firmly established as one of America’s best-known brands, Hancock was contemplating major market changes. The company wanted to be considered by consumers buying a wider range of financial services. Its executives understood that in order to compete effectively it had to stand out against the other behemoths of the era.
All of the major competitors had commonalities in their marketing. First, their messaging was about stability (for example, Prudential’s “Get a piece of the rock”). Consumers of financial services clearly wanted to associate with strong companies that would be around longer than they would. That’s the point, isn’t it? Makes sense, doesn’t it?
It does. Nobody in their right mind would deviate from that.
Bu at that time the financial service players also spoke mostly about themselves. This was where John Hancock decided to break out.
The original campaign, created by Hill Holliday, was called “Real Life, Real Answers.” It depicted people (actors, obviously) in scenarios that would likely strike a chord with potential consumers (e.g., new baby, home purchase, passing the $30k salary mark!). In every print campaign and toward the end of each TV spot, the ad suggested products and services that the subjects would be likely to buy—in sidebars. It was an entirely soft-sell, but it wasn't an explicitly hard sell. It allowed the consumer to see a lot of product categories at once. And the products looked like solutions to real-life needs.
This campaign, the first of its kind to be all about the consumer, literally changed the landscape of financial services marketing. Nobody had ever seen anything like it in financial services. But of course, as soon as we saw it (and I was on the team, on the client side) it made perfect sense.
I tried to find a clip of “Real Life, Real Answers” but couldn’t. Here’s what Hancock is doing these days, still in the same vein. Take a look at “Investment Strategies: Getting Back In,” part of the “You Are Not Alone” campaign.
Copyright © 2013 Carol R. Trager. All rights reserved.
