Type and hit ENTER

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
GET CONNECTED

 

"Witty, clever and extremely relevant in these godforsaken Zoom times." Zoë Foster Blake

Book on sale now from Penguin Random House.

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
3 post-Scotty lessons: good marketing is not like that
Share
Scotty Marketing
Articles

3 post-Scotty lessons: good marketing is not like that

May 30, 2022
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Here let me read it to you. Best to listen straight off Spotify though, the browser version is buggy.


Thank God an end to slogans and photo ops for now

What can you, a regular business person, learn from the recent Federal election? Things! And we will get to them shortly, but first some pure self-interest.

Gotta say I’m relieved that election is over. Because I was sick of it and also now my old profession can start to rebuild its tattered reputation. It’s taken a battering, thanks to the whole Scotty From Marketing thing.

I’m not keen to bring politics into a business blog. You can read that elsewhere, I don’t want to bore international readers, and my own politics are of no interest to you.

Yet whichever way you lean, Scott Morrison is a product you only buy once. Like Dr Pepper cola or iSnack 2.0, Kraft’s nightmarish Vegemite-cream cheese experiment. One-off purchases are not the pathway to a happy, profitable brand.

I did a picture search and discovered unexpected copywriting gold. Hats off to you Woolworths!

The Morrison user experience really cemented the public impression that marketing people are all message and no delivery. Spinning out snappy slogans and nice pictures to trick you into buying products that will ultimately disappoint you.

And that’s a shame because decent marketing is nowhere near as shallow and dodgy as most people think it is. I’m not a full-time marketing guy now. But I loved my time as a marketing creative, and it’s fun and profitable to bring that approach to our businesses.

Marketing: a mildly-embarrassing career

Yes I know, marketing isn’t a prestigious profession. Your parents don’t want to tell their friends you’re in marketing. It’s easy fodder for standup comedy routines.

Marketing rarely gets a board seat in listed companies next to the grown-up finance and law folk. Because they view us as the people who make pretty pictures. It’s a brutal bit of irony that marketing is the worst part of business at marketing itself.

How corporate boards see marketing

There’s also deep shame when the word gets adopted by some of the worst businesses you can think of. Plenty of times I’ve been at a party and someone would ask me what I do.

“Oh, I’m in marketing.”

“Wow, that’s a coincidence! I’m in marketing too!”

“Cool, where do you work?”

“Well I don’t work at a specific place. I’m in (insert repellent multi-level marketing brand name here). Have you ever wanted to be your own boss?”

It’s bad enough having MLM types trying to lure you into their pyramid at social events. But to have them suggest they do the same thing as you is the final nail in the coffin.

Yet marketing has many reasons to be proud. It’s what delivers the margins that most in your business take for granted.

Marketing all the time is not good marketing

At the core of the Scott situation was the belief that everything is a marketing angle. When the wiser approach is to shut up, listen to your customers, and improve your product. That’s what a good marketer would do.

I wrote of this look-at-me marketer syndrome a couple of years ago in peak COVID, when Virgin Australia fired 3000 staff and gave them each a picture autographed by Richard Branson.

Now Is Not The Time For Your Marketing, Richard Branson

When you’re all about the marketing messages all the time, even when the situation calls for the exact opposite, people grow tired of you real fast.

Here are three things about marketing that Scotty forgot, and that might help your business.

1. Marketing is not promotions

The popular image of marketers since the Mad Men days is making ads. It’s easier to understand and people think you spend all your time doing photo shoots in exotic resorts, hanging out at the pool bar with the models while the crew sets the lights up.

That’s just a part of it. I’m not going to bore you with the 4Ps of marketing but your product is as important as the promotion.

Much as I love writing ads and a good resort photo shoot, as a business owner I’m repulsed by the idea of luring customers in with a clever message then giving them a shitty experience.

It’s a real P.T Barnum carny trickster approach. It’s great if you’re moving your wagons from town to town in a time when messages travelled by telegram. It’s amazing that so many hustlers still think it’s OK today.

People can see that you’re just saying whatever transactional stuff you think might score a quick sale.

Ads work, but the most important element of a brand is reliable delivery. Customers come to you to minimise their risk. It doesn’t have to be the full Rolls Royce experience, but it has to be something they can rely on every time.

Don’t be a carny trickster business

2. Marketing is not a one-way broadcast

To be good at marketing, you have to be obsessed by what’s on your customers’ minds. That means talking to them, and more importantly, listening. And not just direct questions about your product.

Yes, you need data. There are lots of ways to interpret data though. If you’re not directly in touch with the people who buy from you, you can build all sorts of confirmation biases into your conclusions.

You create confected ideal customers who you reckon love your product. Quiet Outer Suburban Families and so on. Businesses love a good PowerPoint mythological tribe from their consulting firm.

Turns out if you’d listened better, you’d learn they’re buying someone else’s product now.

Listen more. Alert marketing (and sales) people should become the voice of the customer at high levels that stops your company being too out of touch or greedy.

3. Spend less time staring at “the competition”

Business people are naturally competitive and it’s tempting to focus on your direct competitors. They’re a favourite topic in internal meetings.

When you hear about a customer they let down or their new product that divebombed, you cannot wait to tell your workmates. You roll the story around like a fine vintage wine, savouring each detail. It’s that finest of German compound words: schadenfreude. The pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.

When you think that way for decades, you start believing your competitors really are as shit as you want them to be.

a) Customers do not think they’re that bad

b) You don’t notice other, different competitors coming in. Or you dismiss them as being beneath industry standard. And one day they whup your ass.

Because you weren’t listening and the model you always took for granted just changed.

And you, a self-supporting business person, won’t have a generous parliamentary pension to cushion the fall. Be careful out there.


Exciting Milestone!

I was feeding this story into WordPress and it told me this is my 200th blog story. I really didn’t expect this to run as long as it has, and I’d assumed I would run out of topics much sooner, even including the ibis business lessons.

It started as a way to get a book deal, then a way to promote that book, but I’ve become strangely addicted to it.  And I really enjoy the community of people who like their business inspo weird and sometimes irritable. Bless you all, your support is appreciated.


A book for a brighter future

Want a book that’s working hard for fair-dinkum families and the salt-of-the-earth small businesses that are the engine room of our economy? Because that’s my promise to you, as a marketing guy who’s just getting on with the job. And I will not apologise for that. Vote 1:

Undisruptable: Timeless Business Truths For Thriving In A World Of Nonstop Change.

A book you can trust to keep your loved ones safe and reduce traffic in your specific residential street. Representing the Penguin Party. Get it here:

Undisruptable Booktopia Review Ratings

Also I write a story each Tuesday, drop your email here to get it in your inbox.

For those of you in geo-blocked countries, here’s your non-Spotify audio:

https://ianwhitworth.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Scotty.mp3
May 30, 2022

Related News

Other posts that you should not miss.
Articles

Why Don’t Your Staff Do What You Tell Them?

June 22, 2020
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Most managers speak in rubbery words that let their staff choose their own adventure. How to avoid that, plus why it's time to drop the Corona platitudes.

Read More
June 22, 2020
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Michelin Guide Genius
Articles

The Michelin Guide: Pure Marketing Genius

October 28, 2019
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

It's essential (and fun) to keep an eye on your competitors. But there's a giant, invisible competitor right in front of you.

Read More
October 28, 2019
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Rory Sutherland
Articles

Why Business School Was Wrong

May 25, 2020
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Why do customers say one thing then do another? Because understanding them takes deeper understanding than your spreadsheet model.

Read More
May 25, 2020
Posted by Ian Whitworth
← PREVIOUS POST
Why we dropped a 15-year supplier relationship
NEXT POST →
Simon Sinek is the worst motivator, prove me wrong
FREE E-BOOK

SUBSCRIBE
MOST POPULAR
  • Too much testosterone: please, enough about Navy SEALs
    October 31, 2022

    Nothing against Navy SEALS, but my job doesn’t involve much amphibious warfare. Neither does yours. Give it a rest, white collar office guys.

  • Last-minute grocery businesses are a massive bag of dicks
    June 27, 2022

    It’s a business model that seems to have cherry-picked all the worst, hardest, most expensive elements of running a business.

  • Undisruptable South Korea deal
    Undisruptable’s first international publishing deal
    January 31, 2022

    Undisruptable will see its first international release later this year and it's not in a country you'd expect.

  • “An Australian business classic.” Reviews of Undisruptable
    July 12, 2021

    The reviews are in and they are very good.

ABOUT IAN WHITWORTH

Ian Whitworth is a reformed advertising creative director turned entrepreneur with a successful national group of businesses that he doesn’t work in day to day. Read more

POPULAR TAGS
management
branding
Sales
Marketing
jargon
Persuasion
Covid 19
Nickelback
Pitching
Coronavirus
strategy
MBA
startup
Copywriting
Motivation
Business
CEO
Design
Graphic Design
Business Travel
Elon Musk
Frequent Flyer
David Attenborough
Advice
Lacey Filipich
Saxton Speakers
Scene Change
Penguin Random House
Gary Vaynerchuk
Sales Pitch
Tendering
Planning
Conversation Skills
Customers
Customer Service
AI
Shingy
LinkedIn
Simon Sinek
Success
Presentations
Mr Pigden
Motivators
Entrepreneur
Ian Wright
Archives
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Whitworth Communications 2020
3 post-Scotty lessons: good marketing is not like that - Undisruptable