Richard Tidman of Space66 on "why we need to stop chasing marketing perfection"
Over the years I’ve worked with a significant number of clients whose drive to achieve perfection with every initiative was palpable. The pressure they placed upon themselves and the people around them was both inspirational and in the same breath, somewhat disturbing.
Richard Tidman on chasing marketing perfection
There’s nothing wrong with dreaming big and setting a lofty goal. But rather than plotting every detail of your trip in advance, and being alarmed when events don’t go to plan, what about taking one step in the right direction, and having a good look around before deciding to take the next step?
Today’s marketing landscape is incredibly complex. With over 3,000 marketing technologies at your disposal and new channels coming on stream at an almost exponential rate – gone are the days of being able to create a master plan to which all stakeholders are held to account.
Instead we have to be focussed on the journey as much as the destination. There’s no point relying on a map when the ground is shifting below your feet. The perfect route doesn’t exist, and even if for a brief moment it did, it’s likely to have faded away as fast as it came into being.
Traditional market research is no longer relevant, and your investment in months of strategic research and planning is often made obsolete by shifting sands by the time you’re into execution. As is your annual budget with activity neatly itemised and bracketed into creative, media and production.
NASA didn’t set out to build the Saturn 5 rocket, it set out with an objective (to land a man on the moon), then went about methodically testing its way to the solution. Lot’s of hypotheses, lots of tests, lots of failings – but by learning the way and continuing to invest in what worked, eventually the complicated system of launch system, command and lunar excursion modules emerged as the favoured solution – something quite different from the initially preferred concept of one massive rocket capable of launching from Earth and landing on the Moon.
Brands seeking success (and indeed sanity) in this modern marketing world need to embrace flexibility as a defining characteristic. Flexibility which needs to be ingrained in the culture within the organisation, the contracts they issue partners and suppliers and in the protocols which guide their marketing operations.
One of the key principles of Agile Marketing is to embrace change. Working in sprints, regularly taking the opportunity to adjust your heading through the sprint review, retrospective and planning process gives you a really effective mechanism to embrace and adjust to change – and to do so in a way which is both democratic and informed through available data and insight.
Having a robust measurement and reporting framework to support your Agile Marketing is critical, which may require some significant investment of time and resources, but once you have a reasonable degree of confidence in your data, you should be well positioned to start making educated and informed decisions that adapt your strategy, tactics and success in response to changing market – and marketing – dynamics.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said “Life is a journey, not a destination”, I think that can be a great way to think about marketing.
Richard Tidman is managing director at Space66. Space66 is out to change the way that brands and digital production companies work together. Demystify the craft, expedite delivery, save you money and most importantly improve the performance of your communications.
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Space66
Space66 is a multi-award winning creative digital production company. Our unique colocated model enables brands to unleash the power of Agile Marketing.
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