When it comes time to make cuts, marketing always seems to get the first swipe, and new product development the second, find Philip Kotler and John A. Caslione. The authors rue that such a response is always a mistake because it destroys market share and innovation. “When you cut marketing, you are leaving room for your competitors to get their message out in the forefront and to gain greater market share as yours slips away,” write Kotler and Caslione in ‘ Chaotics: The business of managing and marketing in the age of turbulence ’ >www.landmarkonthenet.com .
Their advice to enterprises is to stay alert and focused, and to also avoid committing two other big marketing mistakes, viz. stretching to attract new customers before securing the core, and neglecting the 900-pound gorilla. On the first, they explain that trying to broaden your core product or service appeal to please a wider audience can be risky. “Chances are that you will make your best and most loyal customers even less satisfied, giving them one more reason to consider your competitors.”
The ‘gorilla’ reference is to the 24/7 world of non-stop information, in which whenever news breaks, everyone gets it, including the customers. “During down markets, especially when turbulence and chaos reign, your customers and all of your company’s stakeholders know that business isn’t great. Ignoring this fact and, worse, not keeping them updated is dangerous,” the authors counsel.
Imperative read.
Formula preparation
In ‘ My Story’ ( >www.harpercollins.co.uk ), Lewis Hamilton captures the details of plant visits as part of his training and development. “I visited al the different departments and engineers both at McLaren in Woking and Mercedes-Benz in Brixworth, England and Stuttgart, Germany so I could learn about the brakes, suspension, rear-suspension geometry, disc-control settings, gear ratios, pit stop strategies, the controls, the dashboard, the launch procedure, the default procedures when you are out on the track…” he writes.
“I had to understand them and the details and exactly how it all works and know them backwards. I took the opportunity with both hands and maximised my potential. I did not just turn up in a daze. I went home and I studied. All the sheets of paper and booklets that they gave me, I read and made sure I understood.”
Hamilton doesn’t see the whole exercise as one of being programmed. “I was given an opportunity to learn and I took it. I applied myself better than I have ever applied myself – and that is why when I got to my first Grand Prix I was ready.”
All his days are planned out in advance, with a carefully fixed schedule. “I can just have fun which means getting in that McLaren car and racing it. When I have to do appearances, I can tell people my story and enjoy it. I try to feel happy because that is what I can take energy from.”
Right pick for the weekend.
Consumer response to creative innovation
A bad consumer response in creative development research isn’t necessarily the end of the world, says Jon Steel in ‘ Truth, Lies & Advertising: The art of account planning’ ( >www.wiley.com ). “It is rare for any advertising campaign, however great, not to attract negative comment. The real skill of the planner is in distinguishing between those negative comments that are relevant and need to be addressed and those that are either irrelevant to the ideas as they currently stand, or that can easily be dealt with in production.”
Steel cites the observation of Akio Morita, founder of Sony, that a company whose strength lies in innovation does not wait for consumers to tell it what they want. “The public does not know what is possible, but we do,” Morita wrote.
The same applies to consumer response to creative innovation, Steel argues. “Most people have a frame of reference that extends only as far as their existing experience. Their ability to predict how they might feel at some time in the future, about a piece of advertising that they are seeing only in embryonic form, is often severely limited.”
Timeless insights.
