Knowing your enemy, competitor, their movements, their pathway. Understanding their weapons, their products, the benefits. Understanding the territory, their prime market targets, their consumer behaviours, it’s all influential as to how you plan the war, the strategic marketing plan, the tactics and the way forward.
Media. Uncompromising, relentless, probing, inquisitive and unforgiving. Just a few of the accusative adjectives that flood the tides of today’s public perception
Some years ago I wrote a paper entitled, ‘The Culture’s not just in the Yoghurt’ in which I attempted to explain to agencies the missing ingredient in campaigning. What I wrote was decried as utter nonsense and it was dismissed as “Voodoo” by one agency MD.
There’s an old story from World War 1 about a bunch of soldiers in the trenches. The only way to get orders down the line was to tell the first man in the trench and he would pass it on. On one occasion a British Major delivered an order, “Send reinforcements – we’re going to advance”.
‘Problem’. It’s a dirty word. Not many people like them. Most people hate them. The art of solving them is seldom, if ever taught in educational venues and generally most people like to use them as a good excuse.
Part of a marketing strategist’s function is to justify plans and strategy. One area of the marketing discipline, which seems to elude logical explanation, is the question, “Why should I brand?”.
Every year someone asks me what’s my New Year’s Resolution (NYR) and every year I lie. So for 2017 my NYR is to stop telling people who ask, that I have one. I usually fib to end the conversation or to at least bringing it to a more rapid conclusion.