Having just got back from Cannes (for those who don’t know, the biggest advertising gathering in the world) with my ears ringing from the sound of ‘trends’ including Generative AI, 1st party Data Strategy Retail media and Sustainability of the supply chain, I left a little overwhelmed and confused what is going on and what am I doing with my life?
Apart from feeling like little old consultant me was crashing a big agency/tech wedding, there are a couple of issues here…
Firstly, the world of advertising has seemingly forgotten its role; to promote products or services to help them sell more stuff, hopefully via memorable creative and messaging. There has been so much focus on the what & how, we probably need to remind ourselves why we are doing it (not in a sickly Sinek way, but as in what’s the point of our job?). All the tools and funky trends should enable business outcomes, not be the raison d’etre itself.
Secondly, and a very pertinent thing that bothers me (which is likely how Joe & I got chatting re this) was the universal disregard for tiny-small-medium businesses.
Talk up and down the ‘Croisette’ was that of global multi-$bn market cap category leaders talking about how they created experiences and spent an unimaginable amount of cash on a meaningful social filter or something equally award-entering-but-people-dont-really-care worthy.
The out-of-touch side combined with the lack of celebration for small businesses was a real eye opener. I’m not sure my 3 person client in Reigate really cares.
What really summed up the disparity between business reality and industry hype was a client call I had one Cannes morning, slotted in between talks in my balmy hotel room with dodgy wifi.
My client, a manufacturing systems company in the food and drink sector, had issues/questions about their website. It was reassuring (not the site issues) the fact these are real businesses with real marketing problems, not listening to talks on yachts about AI.
This whole frustration spurred my now monthly Newsletter Front of Mind, as well as the flawed bias of advertising being conflated with marketing. In the most recent month’s one (ironically hit Send on it as I boarded the flight) I talk about the realities of small business marketing. What we likely can’t do (realistically), and what we absolutely can and should do. For some, it may mean adding more steps to get ahead, but it is about playing with a strategic playbook that the globals get to enjoy, but all without the death-by-committee and can-you-see-my-screen-team-Denver awkwardness.
So, back to basics?
To go into my primary Back to Basic thought, I want to start by making the biggest distinction here. Language matters. Advertising is part of Marketing, but it isn’t marketing in its entirety, marketing is not something you ‘do a bit of’. It should be hand in glove with business goals in small businesses. The way people speak of doing marketing and it didn’t work is likely the symptom of the industry is obsessed with promotional output.
To reiterate this, I want us to be thinking more about the 4Ps. They have been attempted to be increased/changed in vain, but it is the perfect fundamental marketing framework. Ask yourself.
- PRODUCT – what do my audience want and how is the product and service informed, and being delivered
- PRICE – an important level to consider. We don’t just mean promotions either. Setting your price sets your tone, your market position, your perception, your audience
- PLACE – where is it? Where will it be sold? WHere will you be? From Amazon to a trade fair, the physical/virtual location of your product or service matter
- And of course PROMOTION (Advertising) – the ‘sexy’ stuff (though Product is my fave), the stuff the buyers probably see first and foremost. Story for another time, Cannes covered this!
So let us take stock and remember what we are doing and why? Who are we doing this for? Awards and famous work/case studies almost always favour the corporate stuff, or at least well-funded startups/scale-ups who can burn cash in pursuit of customer acquisition.
We need to talk more about how it is a force for good business growth. Driving business. Small businesses on a shoestring. That is what I think most of us here are trying to do for our clients or bosses. The little ones have the advantages, we are usually nimbler on our feet, and we can connect business and marketing/media goals much tighter and quicker. Using the 4Ps. Making changes, whatever the budget.
I would love to see, and it is maybe us reading this now, a celebration of the great marketing (and advertising) work small businesses do on a small budget, maybe even without too much of the advertising part many of us do not have the luxury to invest in. How can we get a seat at that table and celebrate smaller business work.
But maybe it is not about that, and we are just (rightly) focussed on delivering decent work, getting some results, and hopefully some cash to live our lives. That is in itself a success and comes back to marketing’s job, to help deliver a product and communicate it to an audience who may buy it. Simple… right?