Insights on Today’s Marketing Issues

Imagine you are a fly on the wall in a conference room where a team is meeting attempting to solve a new and complex matter. It appears that everyone is afraid to talk and make a mistake, that they will appear weak, uninformed and maybe even stupid, and nobody wants to appear stupid.

The ultimate symbol of an organization’s new-age techniques to be politically correct is to approach marketing with a marketing committee. A marketing committee is often formed to tackle the strategic and design functions of marketing when internal politics demand that everybody has a say and that all opinions matter. Not to mention the fact that leaders can pawn the final decisions off on the committee if it doesn’t work out. It would be naïve of me to say that all committees are a bad idea, but not by much. Just take a look at the United States Congress and you get my drift.

There are two types of experts in the world: Real experts, and fake ones. The real experts are the pros who spend many years refining their knowledge and skillset in a particular area and become masters − much like the difference between a brain surgeon and a plastic surgeon that alters people’s features. Fake experts, you know the type, are not interested in solving your problems but building their own egos and reputations as some kind of thought leaders. Both of these groups share one problem: they misunderstand the business of expertise. One group undervalues real knowledge; the other group overvalues fake knowledge.

Imagine that you and your organization have been struggling with an issue for a long time, just can’t seem to get your arms around it. You are frustrated. It’s costing you money and you need to move forward. But no matter what you try, the issue persists.

A very recent study of marketing directors asked if they knew which agency they were going to select prior to issuing a Request for Proposal. 84% of them responded that they had picked a winner even before reading their response in an RFP. That plays into my long-held belief that if we didn’t have a person on the inside, then somebody else did and we were wasting our time and resources competing for business we couldn’t win. Besides not being right, it’s not in your best interest to have a winner already chosen as you miss out so much on what is available for you.

Amazon is close to rolling out new features for its Alexa virtual assistant, including the ability to remember information at a user’s request, to engage in more natural conversations, and launch skills automatically in response to relevant questions rather than waiting for the user to request a specific skill. Wow, most live personal assistants can’t or won’t do that.

I get it, we are all busy. I hear it constantly from clients, supplier partners and even my work associates. But there is a difference between busy and meaningful.

You never know when a potential buyer or customer may be scrolling through your feeds, and you can’t afford to miss them. In this technology-driven age, it’s crucial for you to remain active on all forms of social media in order to nurture interest in your properties, your products, or your services

Harvard’s legendary professor of marketing, Theodore Leavitt, taught his students that there’s no such thing as a commodity; only people who act and think like commodities. He taught that absolutely everything can be differentiated. You wouldn’t know that by looking out at our local resorts, hotels, communities, and even apples and banks. It’s sad to see how the majority of today’s marketers and clients want to be just like somebody else – it’s safer, it doesn’t take any imagination, and the board of directors will no doubt like it.

Starbucks will be closing its 8,000 U.S. stores and its corporate office for half a day on May 29 to conduct racial-bias training for all of its employees. Starbucks? One of our most progressive companies of this political-correct era stubbed its toe in one store in Philadelphia a few weeks ago. Didn’t they realize that blacks make up 43.3% of the Philadelphia population as compared to whites at 36.6% of the population.