Reality in marketing

The best way to check who is focussing on substance and who on spin.

Read last year's trade press. Exactly the same time last year: day, week and month. Flick through the old issues of Marketing Week, NMA or Revolution.

You are likely to come across a lot of boasting, product launches that promised to kill off the competition, or rebranding campaigns that claimed the category is just about to be turned on its head.

It is always interesting to see how many of them actually achieved what they set out to do. Why is that important for the rest of us, particularly agency people?

Because, from time to time, we tend to fall into that trap ourselves and start believing that the proverbial sizzle is more important than the proverbial sausage (to borrow Dave Taylor's metaphor). Reading the last year's trade press for a day is a good antidote for self-deception. It focuses one's mind on real, crucial strategic issues that our clients need to resolve, not on providing yet another physical extension of a 'bullshit bingo' ticket. Frankly, there is a lot of it around already.

Digital world has a particular form of the 'sizzle': technology. So, far we have been pushing it hard. The time has come to focus on the 'sausage' as well: tangible, measurable business benefits. If it comes with a nice 'sizzle' even better.

But don't take your eyes off the 'sausage.

The great testing scam

I've noticed what seems to be a trend: more and more clients are accepting a new - and dangerous - definition of testing marketing campaigns. We have to stop it, or we could lose a powerful tool.
The scenario looks like this: you think something needs to be tested. You assume that the test is to learn something which both you and the client don't know is certain yet but may have a hypothesis about.

Then the client tells you that he or she expects the test to have a positive ROI. You ask, 'but wait a minute, this is just a test, we don't know if it's
going to work or not.' The client replies; 'Sorry, no guarantee, no test.'

This is bad practice that should be addressed head on. Pressed with an ongoing requirement to justify every penny, coupled with the general culture
of fear that seems to be a modus operandi in so many companies, clients eems to be ever more sensitive to risk.

All testing is a bit of a risky exercise but its aim is to produce insight and not immediate sales. Insight, that will be priceless in the long term and will help clients avoid wasting their advertising budgets.

While I was working on Tesco.com's email programme years ago we tested 14 different subject lines alone! No wonder that they understand so well what works and what doesn't for their customers.

I wish more clients out there realised the value of testing lies in the insight it provides and not immediate ROI.