Insights

It's a Performance Marketing World, We Just Live In It

Over the last five years, I’ve been able to focus a large portion of my time on performance marketing. As I noted the key tenets of what I believe drives effective performance marketing, I thought it could be helpful to others. While the marketing industry continues to debate the virtues of brand vs. performance perhaps I can share insights on both critically important philosophies being active and alive in harmony with each other.

There is No Debate Between Mad Men and Math Men

As the whirlwind of 2018 Cannes posts subsided, I began to think deeply about the relationship between big ideas and today’s access to data, targeting and algorithms. It felt like there were two kinds of people in the world: those that believe we can live in harmony with AI and those that think it’ll destroy many forms of work including advertising.

As the math men vs. mad men debate has grown over the years, those that were stalwarts of an older era of advertising swore AI and other forms of performance media/marketing would strip marketing of its creativity and big thinking. This was especially concerning because the value of marketing can often be questioned, perhaps it’s the first expense to be questioned. At times, I think the advertising industry feels the over-hype of data can make us overlook the value of intuition and understanding customer motivations.

Building a Culture of Change for Digital Marketing Transformation

What’s missing from many digital marketing transformation playbooks, simply put it’s an emphasis on how behavior change can break down silos. However, when I think break down silos, I think of it differently than the oft referenced idiom. I believe transformation requires a deep and pragmatic self-realization process to shift employee motivation.

What gives me confidence in my assessment is that in over ten years, HBR reports transformation has yet to meet the expectation of leaders. While, McKinsey reports that 70% of transformation projects actually fail to meet its goals. I’ve only recently become a student of the topic, for many years I was in the thick of digital transformation at two Fortune 50 companies.