Oiling the Marketing machine with astute strategy

The legendary Malayalam poet O.N.V Kurup was approached by a Director to write poem suitable to Onam (festival) for a movie. They knew quality was assured as it’s ONV after all but had production deadlines to adhere to.

Listening to strict time lines he replied “What you want is a creative work which should stick to the minds & hearts of the masses. A creative work is a metamorphosis just like a budding flower. You can’t force the process. You can’t set deadlines for a flower to bloom and expect it naturally beautiful and graceful. Your song will take time.” said the maestro before delivering one among the many gems of his work.

Marketing is creative work akin to a poem. Unless it sticks to the mind and hearts of masses, it’s a wasteful exercise no matter how many FB posts, Tweets, TV Commercials or Hoardings you commit to the exercise and count your deliverables. The deliverables are important only to the extent of determining the price, target audience and extent of reach required as per stage and reach of business operations.

At the end of day, “Fogg chal raha hai” etched in minds of masses sells Fogg deodorant and not X number of Facebook posts which are vying for attention among hundred others.

Repetition has its benefit provided the right but appealing message is repeated.

There was a time when Marketing was the domain of the creatives. The writers, the cartoonists and even theatre artists (Alyque Padamsee) have donned hats making mark in the industry as foremost marketing gurus. With globalization, the industry flush with capital and expensive MBA’s had other ideas when they went for aggressive marketing bids devoid of good content. Ivy league aggressive MBA’s taking on the marketing baton at Fortune 500 companies meant they focused on what they do best – hammering the message aggressively rather than making appealing content itself.

While every now and then “Fogg chal raha hai” & “Daag acche hai” and such taglines catches the imagination of the masses, the structured approach to creative process has been lost.

The moment you have a non-creative mind running roughshod over the marketing campaign, trust his aggression to kill the flower of creativity from the process. No wonder most campaigns end up bland or boring.

Marketing remains the single biggest endeavor apart from US defence spending where money is wasted on a mass scale. The notion that putting more money and constant repetition solves all the problem is still prevalent and is the root cause of this criminal wastage. In reality, it is like putting good money after bad although its equally true that a minimum budgetary allocation is pre-requisite for facing formidable competitors.

As a pre-eminent salesperson and Managing Director of Sai Estate Consultants, I am often bogged down by aggressive marketing companies selling their wares. I am inclined to first think over the appeal of their message & their strategic outlook rather than deliverables of number of FB Posts, hoardings or TV ads they are capable of doing.

The right strategy should be to assign creative managers with hardcore execution skills to manage brand so that not just the aggressive delivery of message but the brand content itself lurks in the mind long after marketing spent is exhausted.

ABW