Walk the big dog

This is not a blog. It’s just a one-off statement. The website builder doesn’t let you take “blog” off the design - so I thought I should write something so in the unlikely event anyone clicked on it they’d find something - and that something helped them get a sense of me. So…

I get the value of the data-led tech-enabled detail that dominates our marketing lives. Really, I do. It’s obviously important to understand and embrace the potential of all new business capabilities. It’s fascinating – when it’s not scary. And it’s exciting – when it’s not paralysingly complex.

But capability in search of purpose is a big dog taking you for a walk. And at the moment the bottom it smells is of the purchase funnel, hence we are captivated by finding new slightly cheaper ways of pulling forward tomorrow’s sales. But that’s a really poor return on the potential to transform the challenge of business growth that these new capabilities hold the promise of.

We can’t expect the right tech stack and data ocean to somehow piece together the jigsaw puzzle of market success without the need for a picture on the box. It can’t and it wont. Certainly not as it is configured and rewarded right now. Lost as we are in talking too much about all the detail of the capability because it’s easy and not enough about what that can help us achieve, because that’s hard.

Too much about marketing optimization, not enough about the business opportunity.

Too much about targeting audiences and not enough about understanding people

Too much about how to divide up and make small, not enough about how to pull together and make big.

Too much about how to recycle a cheaper yesterday, not enough about creating a new higher value tomorrow.

That’s what I think anyway.