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Enough submarine marketing already
I once ran a workshop for an agency and their clients when the agency head came up with a worried expression. “I asked a marketing director recently what their brand positioning was and he told me it was confidential. How would you respond to that?” When I stopped laughing I had to confess I didn’t know how to respond to it either. But on reflection here’s a go. From that story I have coined the phrase Trident marketing – the type of marketer who likes to operate deep below the surface beyond detection then pops up – fires a missile then disappears again.
Trident marketing isn’t as rare as you might imagine. Every time I run the Building Strong Propositions course for the IDM I get a litany of comments from those who attend about never getting the chance to construct a product proposition because what they are really struggling with is how to come up with a new and stronger offer. And brand messaging almost never gets raised until I do. So clearly there is a lot of submarine marketing going on. Every marketing activity needs to answer 3 questions. Who (the brand question), What (the product and category question) and Why now? (the offer). The last is important I grant you but certainly not the only consideration because if you have answered the Why now and not the other 2 questions then there is no residual effect to your marketing activity. You glide effortlessly down to the depths again and your marketing spend is as long lasting as the last salvo you fired.
When the Strong Propositions course started there was a bit of a debate about whether the IDM should be dabbling in something which was more to do with marketing than direct marketing. 12 courses on it certainly looks as if it was the right thing to do. Marketers continue struggle with proposition writing and want to get it right. Fighting ‘offeritis’ is a constant battle – all of us want to leave the office at the end of the day having created some real estate that will outlast the last tranche of marketing spend. Its high time to call time on submarine marketing. Say who you are, what you’re selling and why the customer should buy now. Come to the surface and stay there. Down periscope!
Time to surface and show who you are
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Nicely put John. Before you can spend all of your time on the surface you will of course need to have your brand positioning and a clear brand identity sorted – and that’s about more than just a clever communications proposition. Then ensure its faithfully adhered to across whatever channels you go to market.
Now we know who the snieslbe one is here. Great post!