Marketing In Tough Times - The Relentless Pursuit Of Positive Outcomes

Because Business In Tough Times Is An Extreme Competition Where The Clock Is Against You

By David Miranda

Team sports is the most ubiquitous metaphor used in business to illustrate the similarities between a successful enterprise and a winning team. Examples abound such as "There's no 'I' in team" ; "We need to play our 'A' game"; and "Business is a contact sport". Even quotes from sports legends make their way into the boardrooms of corporate America such as the famous saying attributed to legendary Coach Vince Lombardi "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing".

Okay, we get it already. Business and team sports do have a lot in common, but sometimes we can take the team sports thing a little too far and forget the critical difference.

Let's consider that critical difference.

Unlike team sports, in business there are no time outs, no half times, no off season, no spring training. Business is a relentless 24/7 high stakes competition. If things are not going your way, you can't call a time-out to get your bearings. The competition goes on relentlessly and it's not just you versus another competitor - it's you against a world of competitors, all the time. The "season" is 24x7x365. Hard to imagine any team sport as gruelling.

Marketers, therefore, must understand that marketing, particularly in tough times, is a verb - an action verb. Successful marketing must embrace a culture of the relentless pursuit of positive outcomes. Gone are the days when a business had the luxury of spending months to develop a marketing plan with its strategic direction and tactical elements to be executed over the next fiscal year.

Today, marketers must employ a "stratactical approach" - a concept that conceives and executes the enterprise's strategy and tactics in tandem. Using a football sports analogy, this is like allowing the quarterback to call an audible - to change the originally called play at the line of scrimmage in order to exploit a defensive vulnerability or counter a defensive threat.

The ability to exploit opportunities and counter competitive threats as soon as they occur requires a new marketing perspective - one that is more agile, more athletic, more manueverable and less bureaucratic, less cumbersome, and less traditional in form and function. Old school marketers will find this approach uncomfortable and, maybe unnerving at times, but it's a brand new "game".

There is no "I" in team, but there is an "us" and "I" in business.

It takes bold leadership and strong teamwork to achieve positive outcomes in a relentlessly challenging world.

Game on!

Competitive Advantage - Reduce The Gap Between Thinking & Doing

Employing Marketing's Version Of the "No-Huddle" Offense

By David Miranda

Enabled by technology, the pace of the marketplace has increased at warp speed and there is no "slo mo" or "pause" button on life's "remote". If the classic tale of the hare and the tortoise were written today, the technology-enabled "hare" would win. All things being equal, in today's marketplace, the advantage goes to the smarter and the quicker.

Competitive advantage, therefore, lies in reducing the gaps between thinking and doing - between planning and execution; between wanting and getting; between feedback and response.

Today's marketplace is a 24 X 7 global competition with no time outs. Competitors are pursuing your customers as we speak with new products and services employing new marketing channels and campaigns. In a world where preference is perishable, competitive challenges must be immediately countered and re-countered as necessary.

The best position to be in is the smartest and the fastest keeping your competitors off kilter. It's marketing version of the "no huddle" offense, i.e not giving your competition time to appropriately respond, as well as, impressing your client and customers on your responsiveness.

This approach demands reducing the gap between the thinking (what do we need to do to succeed considering the circumstances at hand) and the doing (flawlessly executing the plan).

Reducing "gaps" creates competitive advantage, so get on with it.

The Great Compete Against Themselves, Others Compete Against Them

You Should Find Your Fiercest Competitor In The Mirror

By David Miranda

Tiger Woods is the Number One Golfer in the world. Toyota is the most profitable car maker in the world. Google is the most successful search engine in the world. Competitors try and try but Tiger, Toyota, and Google still excel.

The question is why?

The simple answer is that their fiercest competition is themselves, not "the other guy." While their competition is investing time trying to analyze and copy them, they are investing their time on making themselves better than they were yesterday. Interesting approach.

Tiger Woods, even after achieving great success, decided to change his golf coach and his swing. Both his competitors and golf pundits alike were befuddled. Why tamper with success? When asked to explain, Tiger said he needed to improve. Tiger Woods improve? But improve he did! His fiercest competitor is himself.

During a recent interview Ford's new CEO stated that Ford was examining how Toyota was able to make better cars, be profitable, and continue to gain market share. His time might be better spent making better cars. By the time Ford is as good as Toyota is today, Toyota will be better than they are tomorrow. Toyota's fiercest competitor is Toyota.

Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft are all trying to compete with Google and Google continues to gain market share despite their individual and collective efforts. Google competes with itself.

Winners compete against themselves.

The lesson is this - if you want to be great, relentlessly great, compete with yourself.

Be your own fiercest competition. Be a Tiger!

The Age Of Marketing Insurgents

Identity Crisis -Why Incumbents Lose Their Advantage

By David Miranda

The evidence is pervasive. Major incumbents, representing almost every business segment, have been losing their long-held competitive advantage in the marketplace. The perpetrators of this erosion have been insurgents-small, but keenly focused and aggressive competitors who have identified the bureaucratic Achilles Heels of the big guys - arrogance, ignorance, resistance to change, indifference, and resting on one's laurels. Take your pick of one of more.

Examples abound. Some old, some new, some soon to make their case.

Take the newspaper and magazine industries. Once the unchallenged incumbents of the fourth estate, both in circulation and advertising. Today, declining circulation with the resulting effect on revenue. The insurgents? Craig's List, eBay, Google, Yahoo, news sites, blogs, to name a few. The head of the New York Times said recently, he does not expect the Times to be printed within five years going all digital. Time Inc., the world's largest magazine publisher has recently undergone its second major round of employee cuts. Time magazine, the flagship brand, has recently reduced it advertising rate card circulation from 4 million to 3.25 million and announced more resources dedicated to its online efforts.

Take the real estate and travel industries. These once heavily intermediated industries have been disintermediated. On the travel side, agents are on the endangered species list driven out by both internet travel agents (Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, etc) as well as the web sites of the travel providers themselves. Real estate agents are being circumvented by the likes of Realtor.com, and BuyOwner.com with the ability to both buy and sell their homes on the Internet.

The music industry once tightly controlled and marketed by the large record labels have seen, what started with Napster, evolve into various and sundry distribution channels they never imagined a short decade ago. The internet has provided a channel for new talent to find an audience and distribute content. iTunes has become the most powerful music distribution channel in the world. As we witnessed the end of the LP, the 8-track, and the cassette. We are now witnessing the demise of the CD. A similar situation can be found in the movie industry.

These are just some examples of insurgents taking it to incumbents.

But what are incumbents to do? The answer lies in the brands they developed and nurtured - brands that they have taken for granted and underutilized in their battles with the insurgents.

The incumbent brands need to understand their underlying attributes, their real raison d'etre. The New York Times, for example, is not a newspaper. It is a news organization with a rich and storied tradition of award-winning journalism and commentary. It is a valued curator of the news. The newspaper has just been a means to distribute the content, just like film was a means to distribute photos. As long as newspapers see themselves as newspapers, insurgents will win.

The music labels are music discoverers, mentors, and distributors of talent to music audiences. They are not producers and distributors of CD's. Like newspapers, the CD is just a means to an end. It is the end that matters. Until they learn this, the insurgents will win.

Incumbent brands must understand and learn from the past. The railroads thought they were in the trains and tracks business. They were in the mass transportation business and if they had learned this sooner they might have recognized the opportunity and threat of the airlines. If the old movie moguls has realized they were in the entertainment business, not the movie business, they would have recognized the opportunity and threat of television.

Incumbent brands, instead of chasing insurgents, first need to look inwardly.

What business are you really in? Chances are an insurgent is lurking to take it?