Week 5 – MBA6101 – Guerrilla Marketing

In Chapter 5 of Guerrilla Marketing, Levinson covers the topic of developing truly creative marketing. He provides a great exercise for one to do. First, practice writing what you think might be the creative strategy for current advertising you've seen, composing three-sentences that apply to them. Do the same for their competitors and the comparison between them would establish the brand's positioning. Very insightful approach! He goes on to outline the seven-steps to assuring successful marketing.

1. Find the inherent drama within your offering
2. Translate that inherent drama into a meaningful benefit
3. State your benefits in as believable a way as possible
4. Get people's attention
5. Motivate your audience to get involved
6. Be sure you are communicating clearly
7. Measure your finished advertisement, commercial, letter, website, and/or brochure against your creative strategy

These steps are brilliant in their simplicity and require having a clear idea of what you want to say about your own product or service. To picture the mind of your customer at the moment that customer makes a decision to purchase and talk about the feelings that the prospect will experience after owning what you are selling. Levinson does caution to be wary of basing your creative strategy on rapid societal changes that are more anecdotal than factual.

One last point: Guerrillas are attuned to world happenings including at the national and local level, breaking news, and up-to-the-minute trends--if you're not keeping up, you're falling behind.    

Week 5 – MBA6101 – Surfing the Tsunami

Kelsey posits that there are three ways one could respond to AI: Adapt, Adopt, or Adept with Chapter 5 of Surfing the Tsunami focusing on what Adopt is all about.

He writes that adopting is a "better" response to AI, where one is adopting AI-related tools & platforms, becoming more actively involved in managing AI. Whatever company uses AS will have a competitive advantage.

I came across an article this week that touches on a point made in the book, where new tech comes along, displaces workers or creates a new job opportunity. At Chili's Grill & Bar restaurants, robots are being used to make their server's jobs a little easier, which "allows their staff to be more engaging with the guests while benefiting the restaurant altogether." The Chili's example is one that highlights how routine work became the mother of automation AND stressed the importance of the employee's focus to be on making the customer experience better as more of his/her time was spent engaging with the customer, not hustling to get dishes back to the kitchen.

In a nutshell, "sooner or later, because of economic competition and past precedents, AI will be increasingly adopted" (Kelsey, 2018). So, if someone is in denial, that won't stop the marketplace from adopting AI-related tools & platforms. What I do like is the approach Kelsey notes, calling it "sustainable transition" with AI where adoption is facilitated by organizations willing to redevelop their workforce to maintain relevance, gain a competitive edge, and sustain growth with a skilled labor force.

Week 5 – MBA6101 – Ascend Your Start-up

In Chapter 5 of Ascend Your Start-Up, Yu states that her life was one part luck, one part determination. While I can see how she concludes this, I am more aligned to Oprah Winfrey's supposition: “I believe luck is preparation meeting opportunity. If you hadn't been prepared when the opportunity came along, you wouldn't have been lucky.” So, life is a journey and there are thousands of decisions made in a lifetime. Each one forms the trajectory or arc of your story. Don't know something? Find someone or something (a book, an article, a podcast, a Google-search) to get to know what you don't know.

Yu repeats that sometimes you have to go backward to go forward. I think that she means we should pause, give due consideration, pivot--if need be--to stay on task, focused, driven. Repeatedly asking yourself "why?" will work to gut-check each decision. Does this act ladder up to the vision, the mission, the purpose of your business? What are your customer's telling you? Are you listening? How do you make an advocate of your customer? Yu posits that customers go through six stages in their [purchase] journey, the last of which is advocate. Here they are:

1. Evaluate: customer is doing research on the product(s) or service(s) that will address their need(s)
2. Invest: biz has the oppty to show how their solution solves their problem/need and outlines how you do it better thank or differently than your competitor does it so talk about how you've successfully delivered it to someone else
3. Deploy: how you onboard your customer ensures your customer understands the value they provide to your biz
4. Adopt: this is where your customer uses your product(s) or service(s)
5. Expand: how satisfied a customer is with your product or service can be inferred by how much they expand their footprint with you--find out what that trigger is and apply some predictive modeling for other customers to ensure they get the same positive experience as other customers
6. Advocate: get customer feedback, keep a loop that goes back to product or service group in your organization, get positive reviews on your website, to build on word-of-mouth

Yu stresses the importance of the customer experience, as a make or break endeavor for businesses. This is where data comes in. Analyze what you know about customer behaviors. Glean insights and take action, making adjustments as necessary to stay relevant, engaged, and constantly innovating.

The responsibility to manage the customer experience starts at the top and includes the Board, C-Suite, Executive Leadership, all the way down the rungs of an organization's ladder to the frontlines. It is imperative to ensure the frontline knows the value the organization places on them being the face of the brand.

Week 4 – MBA6101 – Guerrilla Marketing

Developing a Guerrilla Marketing Plan is the topic of Chapter 4 of Levinson's Guerrilla Marketing book. He emphasized that one must "start with a plan and commit to that plan" in order to succeed in business. That is true with just about anything in life: weight loss is a goal but the plan to bring that to fruition requires eating healthier foods, working out more, getting enough rest, etc.

In business, Levinson is absolutely correct that "Positioning is the key to marketing." And he has four questions that must be answered in order to measure your (product or service)'s position in the market. These are:

1. Does [your product or service] offer a benefit that my target audience really wants?
2. Is it an honest-to-goodness benefit?
3. Does it truly separate me from my competition?
4. Is it unique and/or difficult to copy?

The benefit is best identified as the problem the consumer has which your product or service is the solution for. If it does not benefit the consumer, it is not an honest-to-goodness benefit. Your product or service exists, so what? It's the best in the nation/world. Why? It's 10x more effective than brand Y. Why should I believe that? No one else can say "x,y,z" like we can because [ fill in the blank ]...now you might capture their attention. You are giving the consumer the RTB, reason-to-believe. Tell them about the problem they didn't know they had, crystalize it in such a way that they are compelled to take action. There's a reason those made-for-TV infomercials are so effective, and I bring it up to make a point: these hit all the points. Watch one, at 3 AM when you cannot sleep. You'll go down a rabbit hole. And if it's less than $20, you'll buy it because that's the threshold for spending money and not feeling gipped or fleeced.

So bottom line is: knowing what your brand is/represents is key to differentiation and authenticity--two things that are crucial to an enterprise with a value proposition. Know how you are, where you are going, and how you will get there. It's that simple (in theory) and requires effort (in practice).

Week 4 – MBA6101 – Surfing the Tsunami

Kelsey posits that there are three ways one could respond to AI: Adapt, Adopt, or Adept with Chapter 4 of Surfing the Tsunami focusing on what Adapt is all about.

Kelsey writes that adapting is a "good" response to AI, where one should learn more and pay attention to what's going on and the trends or patterns being seen.

Reading the provocative question posed, "who is in control? You, or your Smartphone?" reminded me of being on a subway train in Tokyo back in 2002, laughing to myself at seeing so many Japanese people glued to their phones! I could not fathom what would be so enthralling--I only had my trusty Blackberry. Japan was one of the first nations with 3G so their phones offered a whole experience! The younger population even had devices with unique bling (charms, stickers, cases). I had no idea that it was only just the beginning. It wasn't until years later, when the behavior was evident in American culture that I realized it was inevitable...I just wasn't paying close attention.

Back to the topic though. I don't believe people think of reminders, as Kelsey points out, as being AI. My daughter uses Alexa to set reminders or timers, do calculations, play music (including playlists on Spotify). I see it. I am paying attention.

I also agree with reading articles--Kelsey has a great list to start off, to which I'd also add Harvard Business Review for folks who want to "dig deep"--reading books (I, too like the physical act of turning pages, and Kindle must've realized that too when they introduced page turning or page scrolling as a settings option...note: you can highlight things on a Kindle, make notes, and do searches based on all these things (game-changer!). By the way, Amazon got big because they harnessed the power of data. People should not hate Amazon for using the power for greater profits. Kelsey is absolutely on point when he says that "the environment will become more competitive." And "more competitive" is an action, an act. Not passive. Hungry like a wolf. On the subject of AI, I'm not hungry for knowledge enough to buy a book; I will stick to articles for now. If/when I do decide to venture out, I'll have a list to start with.

Week 4 – MBA6101 – Ascend Your Start-up

In chapter 4 of Ascend Your Start-Up, Yu says four things that really jump out at me,

1. "After coming all this way, I feel inadequate."
2. "You know you have achieved a certain level of success, yet you do not embrace the milestone."
3. "We don't know what we don't know in life. We just keep going."
4. "Have the courage and grit to stay the course."

I'll take them one at a time.

"After coming all this way, I feel inadequate." There are many days, when I look around the table and see some fierce leaders and think to myself, "Am I a player at this level?" I admire how some of them ask questions before providing their opinion, or provide their opinion last in order to let others, often more junior, have a voice. What is my voice? Why does anyone care to hear what I have to say? And if called upon, do I have a POV I want or should share? I am reminded that, yes, if I am at the table, I am a player. Gone away is the "fake it til you make it" approach and in its place is, "everything you've done has allowed you a seat at the table."

This leads me to the second quote: "You know you have achieved a certain level of success, yet you do not embrace the milestone." Awareness of having a seat at the table is the first thing to note. I have. The next thing is to have the confidence to relax and celebrate within, the achievement of having reached this milestone. I am getting there. I guess I had thought there'd be some kind of clear sign, "you are here!"

Yu is spot-on when she states, "We don't know what we don't know in life. We just keep going." I have been in survival mode for most of my life. It's made me lean and mean, efficient with the steps because it feels like time is speeding up, not slowing down, and I want to slow it down. I have taken a long road, unbeknownst to me, 'cause, "We don't know what we don't know in life. We just keep going." Like the Energizer bunny.

Lastly, I've always had "the courage and grit to stay the course." I was raised by parents who said, "Figure it out." They didn't hand me the solution and back then I wondered, like a naive child, if that was because they didn't know. No, that wasn't the reason. It was because they wanted me to learn things for myself. That gave me a sense of ownership. I didn't immediately know my way and my 20s were a blur, bouncing from one thing to another, until I got my shit together and said, "Finish that bachelor's degree. It's an entree into the job you want." I didn't do things the linear way, i.e., graduate from HS, then go to college and get a bachelor's degree in four years, get in the workforce and start climbing the corporate ladder. It was quite circuitous, expensive, inefficient, but eventually I created my own roadmap, tweaking it along the way, to have the seat at a table that I have earned the right to sit at. 

Week 3 – MBA6101 – Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla Marketing, chapter 3...I absolutely, positively agree with this a 1000%. All 16 of these principles are established, tried and true, Leo Burnett principles and I believe them to be in priority order, the top 3 being:

1. You must have commitment to your marketing program.
2. Think of that program as an investment.
3. See to it that your program is consistent.

Leo Burnett has a legacy of transforming and building brands. Since the book already mentioned Philip Morris USA's Marlboro product, here are some brands that embody the commitment, investment and consistency in their marketing plans:

1. When Leo Burnett, the man, founded his agency in 1935, in the middle of the

Depression, his first and only client was Minnesota Valley Canning Company. They are

still around today. You may not know them because Leo rebranded it Green Giant and

created the Jolly Green Giant for instant brand recognition because it is still (consistently) the face of the brand with a few touch-ups/enhancements over the years:

2. Kellogg’s has a slew of breakfast cereals and the mascots that are the face of the

brand(s), Frosted Flakes’ Tony the Tiger, Rice Krispies Snap!, Crackle, Pop, Froot Loops

Toucan Sam , Corn Flakes’ Cornelius “Corny” Rooster. All which breed familiarity and amazement because Kellogg's committed to using them on their advertising and packaging, consistently.

3. Altoids, founded in 1780, went from a product touted as a way to relieve intestinal

discomfort to being repositioned in 1995 as the “Curiously Strong Mint” and that’s why

they come in a metal tin.

Commit. Invest. Apply consistently (though a refreshed logo nods to the original).

Today, take note of Dunkin’ Donuts’ rebranding that likely spanned yeeeeeears and they had the

vision to evolve it just like their retail products that now went beyond donuts to full breakfast fare

that were healthier and margins that were nothing to sneeze at. 

Initially, the company had just their name, then a donut in their logo and fast-forward to 2019, it’s just Dunkin'. They even have a tagline, America runs on Dunkin’ and introduced some iconography that allows for a short-hand to their marketing that almost appears to be hieroglyphs. Instantly recognizable if the words were removed from the construct.

Some others: Burger King, Starbucks, Aunt Jemima, Apple, Netflix

Week 3 – MBA6101 – Surfing the Tsunami

Todd Kelsey's third chapter in Surfing the Tsunami, he tackles the spectrum of optimism to pessimism and the sweet spot in between (the realism). He shares some links to some terrific articles with various points of view on the topic of Artificial Intelligence's impact on the job market. "In a nutshell, there are plenty of opportunities to be optimistic, if a society invests enough in its citizens."

The New York Times article The Robots Are Coming, and Sweden Is Fine provides a great juxtaposition between USA and Sweden.

"In the United States, where most people depend on employers for health insurance, losing a job can trigger a descent to catastrophic depths. It makes workers reluctant to leave jobs to forge potentially more lucrative careers. It makes unions inclined to protect jobs above all else.

Yet in Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia, governments provide health care along with free education. They pay generous unemployment benefits, while employers finance extensive job training programs. Unions generally embrace automation as a competitive advantage that makes jobs more secure." (Goodman, 2017)

America typically does not take the long view on many topics, desiring instant gratification (here and now is what is most urgent!) over critical thinking, contingency planning, and strategy. Corporations prioritize profits over jobs in the USA, when really, the Swedes have it right, “If we don’t move forward with the technology and making money, well, then we are out of business,” says Magnus Westerlund, 35, vice chairman of a local union chapter representing laborers at two Boliden mines. “You don’t need a degree in math to do the calculation.” (Goodman, 2017)

I think schools and government at local, state and national levels should partner with futurists and companies large and small to understand the current job need and what is coming in the future: 5, 10, or 20 years from now to shape curriculum and job training so the job force flexes with commerce. For sure the The Great Resignation is a sign in the USA that employees do hold a modicum of power to not tolerate low pay, few benefits, long commutes and/or work days; however, it did serve to make companies aware, more than ever before, that employees don't need to be in a cubicle to prove they are working. Companies might be facing the question: what is the need for a headquarters/office (and that overhead) if employees can work from home? As more tasks get automated, it'll generate a similar question: what do we need humans to (still) do versus a robot? 

Cinema captured what, to me, is the right approach in the true story of NASA computing. 

Check out a short BTS video of Hidden Figures which showed what happened when IBM computers replaced human computers.

Reference:

Goodman, P. (2017, December 27). The Robots Are Coming, and Sweden Is Fine. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/business/the-robots-are-coming-and-sweden-is-fine.html

Week 3 – MBA6101 – Ascend Your Start-up

There's a Kenny Rogers song, "The Gambler" (yes, I am that old), that embodies what Yu is articulating in Ascend Your Start-Up's chapter 3. 

The Gambler chorus lyrics (© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC | songwriter: Don Schlitz)

"You've got to know when to hold 'em

Know when to fold 'em

Know when to walk away

And know when to run

You never count your money

When you're sittin' at the table

There'll be time enough for countin'

When the dealin's done"

Yu advises that "moving product to market is a precarious, slippery slope, and the most likely camp to bring a company down". Some other salient points she makes:

• sometimes you cannot take the time to wait and undergo a full decision process
• sometimes [founders] are tempted to stop listening and appreciating experienced people; the mistake they make after raising money is hiring friends & family
• once you grow to $50MM, you may stall, not realizing you could actually scale to $200MM the nexts three years...you start raising more funds
• sometimes, the people who begin the start-up journey don't stay with you...you must make a decision as to whether you leave those people behind

She is spot-on when she says that "in order to scale faster and more fearlessly, you must think big. Think category. What is the minimal viable category you are entering?" 

Here's a category: household cleaning.

"The Swiffer came into existence after Continuum researchers videotaped people cleaning their homes and realized just how much people hated touching dirty mops. They also realized that most dirt in the home is primarily dust that could be picked up electrostatically." (Woolhouse, 2016). "Continuum [Procter & Gamble's design consultancy agency], pondered two key consumer points: How do they interact with current products on the market? and What challenges do they have with the current offerings? If you can find those answers, you can find the right problem, which can lead to the right product. It’s the same case for startups." (Baer, 2013). Read the case study, success story, and P&G's own take on the innovation being a game-changer. By the way, P&G is #54 (in 2021) in Fortune's 500 and is the world's largest CPG company in the world. Apply those principles to start-ups and scale faster.

References:

Baer, D. (2013, March 11). The Innovation Method Behind Swiffer Madness. https://www.fastcompany.com/3006797/innovation-method-behind-swiffer-madness

Woolhouse, M. (2016, March 22). In Swiffer, a pet project that went big. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/22/product-development-race-goes-swiffer/ddjA1UKErXX33B2Vx1rdsJ/story.html 

Week 2 – MBA6101 – Guerrilla Marketing

Chapter 2 of Guerrilla Marketing focuses on The Need for Guerrilla Marketing.  For me, the key takeaways are:

1. Ensure the quality of your product or service and build the foundation of your enterprise AND your reputation--this should be the primary order of business
2. Focus on innovation [once first bullet is solid] 
3. Solve problems in order to succeed
4. Use small size of your enterprise to deliver speed and flexibility [to market]
5. Know the difference between advertising and marketing
6. Start with a core idea and consistently apply it throughout

The first four are all about the owner of the small business that s/he/they need to focus on before any advertising or marketing is brought into the mix. I would add a seventh: find out what is uniquely you and double-down. Now you're ready for five, six, and my seventh and these come together with advertising and marketing.

Marketing

Leo Burnett, the man who started the agency with his name on the door, had many quotes: “Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.” What does that mean? By having a strong brand identity with a strong brand positioning, the net result is Brand Recognition. 

Framed another way: what are brands that have instant recognition and why?

• Coke–their bottle shape
• Nike–the swoosh and just do it slogan
• McDonald’s–golden arches
• Tiffany & Co.–blue color [fun fact: The Pantone® color is called “1837 Blue,” named after Tiffany's founding year...talk about branding!]
• Amazon–smile logo
• Target–color red and the bullseye

The common thread? They commit to what makes them uniquely them and apply it to everything: to the product, deliver trucks, retail outlet (shopping bags, door sign, shelving), uniforms, product detail pages on eCommerce site(s), and advertising.

Advertising

Leo also once said, “The secret of all effective originality in advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships.” Build your brand on that. Make that connection so strong it cannot be broken, just like those big brands listed above.

Week 2 – MBA6101 – Surfing the Tsunami

Chapter 2 of Surfing the Tsunami talks about the many ways AI is all around us, e.g., drones, self-driving cars, computers, digital assistants, and automation. I was a little too hesitant to immerse myself in the AI space; however, it's all around me--unavoidable.

My client at Bank of America, recently posted a great article on LinkedIn and complemented the info with his own commentary, "Tools like Bank of America’s own Erica have helped to transform the banking experience. It’s one example of AI‘s positive impact. #AI is helping personalize client experiences (like Erica is doing), make better lending decisions, respond faster to cyberattacks, and more."

A friend of mine and her husband wrote a book called Voice Strategy and it goes to great lengths to demystify "voice" tech and provide a methodology for identifying use cases that improve the customer experience and complement a brand's eco-system.

My car has a voice assistant that is not as well-integrated with the tools on the dashboard's "infotainment system". I am encouraged that they've made improvements, outlined in this article, but today, I am frustrated by the lack of understanding what I am asking or wanting to do. It does simple tasks like adjusting the temperature, volume, and calling someone. It fails miserably at more complex tasks like looking up an address if providing name and city/state, for example. Arggggh! Takes me back to when Microsoft came up with their paper clip assistant, Clippy, that was eventually discontinued because he was so hated. Money quote at the 2:32 mark.

I have more hope in Amazon's Echo. My kids asked me to get one of their devices which I love to use as a Bluetooth speaker, TBH, and I noticed more and more that my daughter would interact with it more and more. To get the weather, set a timer, listen to a Spotify playlist while doing chores...the list goes on. Why? Because it's easy and accurate. It even allows to set up each voice, i.e., me, my son, my daughter, which it recognizes and uses to personalize the info--AMAZING.

Week 2 – MBA6101 – Ascend Your Start-up

In Ascend Your Start-Up, Helen Yu gets very real about the climb and when she talks about looking around her at the other climbers, and how everyone is reacting to the altitude, "Because I am the first one to react badly, I think I am the weakest, but I realize this is not true. When you have the heart and mind to overcome a challenge, you endure." (Yu, 2021, p. 60).

Because she had a reaction to the altitude before anyone else did, she was acclimating faster, her body making the adjustments necessary to withstand the climb. This applies to life, which is why Yu uses the climb of Mount Everest as a metaphor for what it takes to launch their own business. There could be distractions, road blocks, frustrations, angst along the path. However, one needs to stay focused on the goal--maintain excitement alongside the anxiety, a push-pull dynamic that propels one forward.

I am a marketer so I love when she asks (and answers), "How do you nail marketability? Explain the problem you are solving as well as your product," (Yu, 2021, p.62). She is spot-on. Every brief an ad agency receives for the client ALWAYS states in question/answer form (I've listed a few below), but the single most important one is "What is the Reason to Believe (RTB)?"

• "What is the business problem?"
• "What is the audience you want to reach?"
• "Anything from the past/present consumer behaviors that must be taken into account?"
• "Any insights (data) from a past or similar marketing campaign that provide some context for what media channels have worked before?"
• "How will success be measured?
• "What is the RTB?"

The RTB means, if I am a customer, what would be the thing that compels me to buy (product or service) what you are selling?" And from a marketing standpoint, the best marketing campaigns amplify the RTB in a way that is provocative, compelling, and persuasive. Communicate the problem the consumer has and serve up the product/service as the "obvious" solution. Brilliant in its simplicity, harder to manifest than one would think.

Week 1 – MBA6101 – Ascend Your Start-up

The metaphor Helen Yu uses in Ascend Your Start-Up is so easy to follow. It's as though she is taking the reader on a literal journey to scale Mount Everest: Base Camp, Slope, and Summit. The three legs of the journey correlate to it to the inner entrepreneur in you.

• Base Camp: the fun and ultra-exciting stage where you turn an idea into a product.
• Slope: where you must move forward, digging in your heels for the treacherous, slippery slope of taking your product to market when ideas fly and you work a gazillion hours and begin to feel the physical effects of what it means to be a founder. This is the difficult territory where 90 percent of start-ups fail.
• Summit: the insanely challenging shift from market to scale. You finally see the Summit—the one you set out to reach or perhaps a new one that has appeared since you started. 

The tone to her writing flows so conversationally, one where she invites you in to demystify the unknown, which is how do you start a business, fuel growth, and stay relevant? It starts with realizing you don't know what you don't know. A great starting point is asking questions to seek your truth, with your company, your product/service, your vision. She states it's the "why?" that Simon Sinek touts as THE most important question to ask oneself. "When we know our 'why,' we know our purpose on a broad scale." (Yu, 2021). The question could be existential, of course, but it is also quite strategic. "To be strategic, you have to make mind space for yourself, to carve out one or two hours a day to think. You can see the trees, but not the forest otherwise. Spending time away from the day-to-day business unleashes my brainpower. Here is where you begin to choreograph your start-up’s graceful climb." (Yu, 2021). This concept I leaned later in life. Shift from a doer to a thinker--this was a big leap for me. I always considered that producing work (and work is a reflection of me, my sense of self) was how I showed worth to my team, to my employer. Perhaps that is a natural evolution of one's career. We start out as worker bees and as we work up the corporate ladder, we take that experience, that seniority, and get paid to think and problem solve.

Which is a perfect segue to the next-most important question to ask: "What real problem(s) are you trying to solve?" She quotes UX designer Sarah Doody who wrote in The UX Notebook newsletter, “If you can’t define the problem, then don’t design a solution.” 

So now one has the problem and the solution. How does one take that company vision and grow the business? By leveraging a management process created by Salesforce founder Marc Benioff known as V2MOM, one is able to "combine brand, strategy, and measurement in a short, concise format."

• VISION (make the future resonate)
• VALUES (identify core beliefs)
• METHODS (build your path) 
• OBSTACLES (anticipate risk)
• MEASURES (track results)

Here's Salesforce.com's first V2MOM, which Benioff had scribbled on a large American Express envelope.

It was literally their business plan. Clear. Simple. Focused. Parker Harris (Co-Founder and Chief Tech Officer at Salesforce) had it framed and gave it to Benioff on the day of their IPO. 

Lastly, Yu asks a not-so-easy-to-answer question: "how do you identify your brand in three words that summarize what you do, for whom, and why?" Answer that, and one just might have the genesis of a business plan!

Reference:

Yu, H. (2021). Ascend Your Start-Up: Conquer the 5 Disconnects to Accelerate Growth. Made for Success Publishing.

Week 1 – MBA6101 – Surfing the Tsunami

The first chapter of Surfing the Tsunami (Kelsey, 2018) really hit home. In particular, the following three things:

1. "You can't really take anything for granted, including continued employment...follow the money trail". I, too, didn't hit the realization early on in my career. I was so focused on output that I lost sight of 5-10-15 year trends or outlooks.
• How I closed the gap/reset: I started to look at the trades, which for advertising is Adweek. On LinkedIn, I started following brands I admire/use, and learned what they are doing, how they are innovating, what they are prioritizing (read Annual Reports and crunch the numbers). At work, I started enrolling in Webinars my company provides and reading (OK, skimming) trends reports that the Leo Burnett team of librarians put together for agency employees.
2. "The better data that a business has, the more profitable you can be, when you are armed with the power that comes from data". This is 1000% true. My first account in advertising/marketing in 1999 was for Walt Disney Resorts and I was on the database marketing team that managed the 800# for the lead generation effort whose ultimate output was fulfillment of vacation planning videos via direct mail.
• How I used this know-how to be where I am today: database marketing was the genesis for Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM), which evolved to digital marketing. Back then, it was about personalization (I learned that doing it wrong is worse than not doing it at all) and data integrity (how standardized/clean the data was/is impacts the experience the customer gets). I was on the least sexy team at the turn of the century; trust me when I say that there was no sizzle video for the work I was doing. Fast forward to the present and I work with programmers, engineers, UX designers, vendors, Data & Analytics (named DNA for short--so very clever!) team that crunches numbers for us, etc. in a highly collaborative way, so I understand each touchpoint. This intel helps my help my clients connect the dots, see/feel our value, and push their comfort level with the safety net that is "test and learn". I believe my dbase marketing roots benefits me, my team, and my clients, to clearly see the interconnectedness of each cog in the wheel.
3. "Think of artificial intelligence as the brain behind either hardware or software...it is increasing automation...and is poised to increase in [its] impact [to the world]." This point is what ties points one and two above. It's the convergence of offline (machining) and online (software) with the software potentially redefining not only a step here or there but entire processes, making things happen faster because of the ability to automate the collection, and subsequently analyze and visualize the data. Formulas can be created to quickly take data inputs and convert them into insights to drive business.
• What I must do: In digesting this content, I gathered from the text that one must have a tremendous sense of urgency. I don't have that yet for AI. It's still very much a concept, theoretical in my head, and I hope to get on board the wagon or risk being left behind. I am not technocozy, to borrow a Guerrilla Marketing concept; I am very much a technophobe so this class is forcing me to face that head-on and work to close the gap.

In a nutshell, this is a data driven world and data driven marketing is a tool to impact a business' bottom line. There's a really great article I encourage you to read, that while a little dated (looks like it's from 2015 or 2016-ish), it was a trend identified then, so we have the benefit of hindsight today to validate the points made. This screenshot sums it up nicely:

References:

i-SCOOP. (n.d.). Data-driven marketing: state, benefits and drivers. Retrieved May 9, 2022, from https://www.i-scoop.eu/data-driven-marketing-the-state-benefits-and-drivers-of-data-marketing/ 

Kelsey, T. (2018). Surfing the Tsunami: An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Options for Responding.

Week 1 - MBA6101 - Guerrilla Marketing

I had never heard of the Guerrilla Marketing (GM) book and am absolutely fascinated by the Intro and first chapter! Working at a large advertising agency--Leo Burnett Groupe--I can say, unequivocally, that there are many truths in the list comparing the traditional marketing to GM. The biggest one? "Big corporations aren't usually quite as fast and flexible on their feet [as are small businesses]" (Levinson, 2007). 

There was a huge shift in what clients seek from their ad agency in the early 2000s, where they pivoted from a big agency to smaller or niche agencies. Initially it was "media agency" and "digital agency" and "traditional ad agency". Now its about Publicis Groupe (or WPP, IPG Omnicom) and the power of all the unique agencies coming under one scope of work in a way that allows holding companies to leverage the know-how of each specialty/channel for the client's benefit. Big clients are big corporations that are very hierarchical, have lots of red tape, and take too long to get a decision such as "approval of a marketing campaign". Publicis is gaining new clients or organically expanding current remit when they present one solution that must be a well orchestrated effort, working in concert to create ads that move the needle: more customers + more transactions = more profit. All advertising and marketing needs to be in service to that. Big business wants to be as nimble as small business, but it is a Herculean effort. And a lot of what happens in Big Biz could be leveraged by Small Biz to maximum effect. A few terrific insights out of the list in GM book to drive small business growth that jumped out at me:

• Repetition is paramount
• Soul and spirit of GM is small biz because they have big dreams and tiny budgets
• Stay focused and be intentional
• Keep in touch with customers--relationships build business so keep the dialog going
• Fusion marketing happens at the small biz level
• Use shortcuts like memes to represent your company
• Practice "you" marketing where the customer is at the center/is the you to keep front & center
• Aim the message at the individual(s)
• Help the customer meet their goals
• Integrated marketing that motivates the customer

The small biz owner should keep these fundamentals in mind and make adjustments as more data becomes available. Like a plant, one must keep watering it and give it food for it to grow.

Reference:

Levinson, J.C. (2007). Guerrilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Week 1 - MBA6101 - About Me

Hi! My name is Bridgette and I live in a suburb of Chicago with my two children. 

Life has thrown so much at me and I can honestly say that the greatest growth has come from overcoming adversity. In June 2019, my ex-husband killed himself, resulting in being a single parent--something I didn't plan. Two months later, I got laid off--something I didn't plan. Seven months later, still no job, COVID-19 hit and shut down the economy--something I didn't plan. Five months after that, I had to do something to make myself a more attractive candidate to land my next job, so I enrolled in Benedictine University's MBA program--something I DID plan. Four months later, I became a boomerang and returned to my first advertising gig at Leo Burnett as a VP, Account Director. It was like coming home. 

During the last three years, I have learned so very much about myself. I realized that I am a survivor. I have drive. I seek growth. I view the world through the eyes of a child, curious about all that is around me. Persisting. Making things happen. Figuring it out. It's not easy, but nothing worth anything ever is! Being a living example to my children of overcoming adversity through sheer will is a gift I never thought to give to them so soon in their lives.

Going back to school at age 49 was terrifying, demanding so much of what little time I had, but my kids said they'd step up and do more so I could do more. And let me tell you...some of these classes are no walk in the park, and Managerial Economics was the class that nearly broke me--I'll give that another shot in the Fall. 

If you're wondering how it feels, here's an article that sums it up pretty nicely, and was the inspiration for my going back: https://www.businessinsider.com/college-as-an-adult-what-its-like-2019-8#learning-new-technology-is-hard-but-it-can-be-done-1

I am looking forward to this "experiential learning" in MBA 6601 and I keep in mind that I learn best by doing. A possible greenshoot is that I will leverage all of this work to actually launch a business I always wanted to do but never started. 

Gotta start to finish.