Thu 25 Aug 2005
The Siren’s Call of Planning
Posted by Mike Bawden under Brand Crafting
[2] Comments
I had an interesting phone conversation the other day.
I answered a phone call from a young guy who was ready to start his own consulting practice … or so he thought. He sounded full of confidence and very sure of both his area of expertise and the need for it in the marketplace. He was calling me because he needed someone to “do some marketing” for him.
His confidence started to fade when I asked him to be more specific. Clearly, he wasn’t expecting that kind of response. “What kind of marketing support do you need?” I asked. You could hear the air escape from him as he deflated right there on the call.
“Well, I’m not really sure,” he said rather sheepishly. “I guess I need help finding clients to sell to. Is that what you do?”
His honesty was refreshing, actually. Here was a guy who quickly made the transition from prospective client to willing student with a minimum level of pain and no pretense. I started by reviewing all of the options and important issues he faced by starting a new business. Then came the death-blow: money.
“Realistically,” I said. “In your market, you’re going to need to spend $10-15,000 a month just to get people’s attention.” We had officially crossed the line dividing the “I can do it myself” mindset from the “How could I ever do that” attitude. We discussed ways to reduce out-of-pocket expenditures and I was careful to bring up the increased demands on management’s time as the budget dropped.
By the end of the conversation, it was clear this prospective client was re-evaluating his decision to go into business by himself, without the resources to do the job that needed to be done.
One thing was clear by the end of our conversation. This guy (and his fledgling business) was going to need a plan that provided a clear vision of what the business should look like in the future and a well-defined path to that success.
I recommended that he start with Michael Gerber’s book, The E-Myth Revisited. For entrepreneurs and business leaders, it’s a concise read and an incredibly helpful tool for setting a corporate and brand vision. But the step that follows it is just as important – planning for implementation and success.
In the past two weeks, I’ve worked on no less than five plans for current and potential clients. The result of each effort has been the clarification of key messages, more efficient use of client resources (especially money) and the identification of dozens of opportunities for the client to represent its story to the market.
And it’s the pursuit of these opportunities that bring almost immediate value to the planning process. For relatively little to no cost, we are able to repeated present the client’s key messages to those who matter most to their success.
The result: almost immediate ROI (return on investment).
The long-term benefits of such an effort are well established. Planned communications are more consistent and build brands faster than poorly managed, tactical efforts that don’t support the brand’s over-arching communications strategy. Well planned marketing and internal communications efforts help reinforce the value perceptions neccessary to create strong consumer loyalty, high employee productivity and market leadership.
It certainly made for an interesting phone call. Maybe I’ll hear from you?
My number is: (563) 359 8423
Talk to you soon!
Mike’s concluding paragraph assumes that we all understand what seems at first blush to be a fundamental distinction, between strategy and tactics. I’ve heard PR professionals address the two in the past, and I’ve nodded and smiled to avoid revealing my ignorance.
It seems apparent that a single newspaper ad is a tactic. But what if the strategy is to use only one newspaper ad? Sure, probably a bad strategy, but enough of one to make my point. And the point is that I need a small-words cure for my lack of sophistication.
A marketing strategy consisting of only one ad? It’s been done before.
In fact, Apple’s introduction of the MacIntosh Computer used just one insertion of one television spot during a football game. That game, known as the Super Bowl, became the “mainstage” for all big-budget launches in the future.
The spot, “1984″, was directed by Ridley Scott who directed Bladerunner and Alien (among a number of other movies and television spots). You can see the spot by going here: http://www.uriah.com/apple-qt/1984.html
So, the single ad placement seemed to do something for the Super Bowl and Ridley Scott, but what about Apple? Well, the ad is widely recognized as the “most effective” television spot in the history of advertising. This single ad launched an entire new generation of personal computers and changed the way we looked at them forever.
So, the short answer is, “no, a single ad is not a bad strategy – assuming it’s a strategy at all.”
Here’s a “small words” cure that I hope will clear things up:
Strategy – an over-arching plan to achieve a certain objective.
Tactics – the smaller, single actions that make up the strategy.
Ad – a single execution of an idea or concept.
Campaign – a series of ads that execute an idea or specific concept.
An ad (or campaign) can support more than one strategy – but generally speaking, ads (and campaigns) are more effective (meaning the communicate more clearly) when they try to support a single idea and/or strategy.
Still confused? I’m always willing to discuss these things in more detail either via our blog or on thep phone.
Thanks for writing,
Mike