Do you have a guiding philosophy that informs the work you and your team do? Should you? Let’s take a moment to pause and reflect.
- Tom Roach argues that marketers with a clear, coherent philosophy produce better work.
- As an example, he points to the mantra of legendary Coca-Cola ad director Delony Sledge: “If we determine to do extraordinary things in an extraordinary way … we will create, in the minds of our consumers, an image of an extraordinary product.”
- And also this from Activision Blizzard CMO, Fernando Machado: “We’re looking for firsts. You only get one chance to do it first.”
- So does Roach have a point? Could a clear philosophy take you and your team somewhere better? Or is it safer to preserve many point’s of view?
- We know that business is not scientifically precise. There’s definitely an art to it.
- We also know that great art often springs from philosophy. How else do you explain dadaism?
- We absolutely know that there are plenty of (often competing) philosophies about marketing and advertising.
- And we know that good leadership—in marketing and beyond—is usually grounded in a clear philosophy of some kind.
- Our take: If you lead a team, they’d probably appreciate a succinct summation of your view on things.
- But they’d also probably appreciate you making room for them to share their own views and contribute to defining a shared philosophy.
- If you decide to give it a go, here’s a decent starting point—the good folks at Buffer have collected the marketing philosophies of 40 famous people.
- There’s some fluff here, but some gold too.
- Our favourite example comes from former Unilever CMO Simon Clift: “A brand is a contract. The customer is the judge and jury. Breach it and they’ll go elsewhere.”
- We like Lee Clow’s mantra, too: “Feeling uncomfortable is often a sign you’re on to something big”.
- Take inspiration from these examples, but don’t stop there. Roach thinks we should all make up our own minds instead of echoing gurus. We couldn’t agree more.
