Strategy | ZENECIST

Clever marketing tactics? Sure — what’s your strategy?

Clever marketing tactics (HOW you’re going to achieve your goals) can only be effective (and measured) if they’re built upon a defined strategic (WHAT you’re going to do to achieve goals) platform. When this is done well, the sum of all tactics is greater than the whole–and can drive the desired return.

[Hiring an accomplished part-time marketing guy is a good start.]

Sit with anybody who watched the Super Bowl, and you can be sure they’ll comment on what is usually some of the most clever advertising on the globe. This year it was TUBI, the free streaming service out to expand its audience, who got us to go for our remote as they ‘changed the channel’ from my YouTube TV to theirs, which I know I have never done. They created action AND showed us its value by giving us samples of their programming we might never have seen. In my mind it was one of the most effective ads in years, and well worthy of the special CLIO™ Award they received as the best of the Super Bowl ads.

Business owners think: “if only we could be so clever with our marketing.” And the repressed creative within them will come up with a clever slogan, most often ending with “for all your (fill-in-the-blank) needs.”

Right.

Here’s the thing. The most clever tactics in the world are as useless as the bar napkin they’re written on unless they are tied to an actionable and measurable strategy. Their effect is as equally short-lived. Money and ROI: poof!

That’s not how P&G does it. Their brands perform to expectations because all marketing tactics are built on a strategic foundation, step-by-step.

First they decide what they are going to do; they formulate a strategy and define possible strategic communications statement/platforms based upon defined goals. And they execute their first tactic, research.

Only then, and armed with a refined strategy/statement tempered by research or other insights, do they create tactics—the how they’re going to fulfill/payoff the strategy/platform—designed to move the needle on their strategic platform.

And, as tactics are executed, their impact adds up to a brand outcome that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

Get it? Well, you’re way ahead of the curve for most business owners, assuming you can also act strategically. (But to know and not do, is not to know.)

I can tell you this, it’s only with decades of mentoring and partnering with Dave Manley, P&G’s first Brand Manager on the Pringles Brand, with whom I worked on Chinet Disposables, Boston Whaler, LoJack, Bay State Power, and Keurig/Green Mountain brands (to name a few), that I started getting good at the strategic brand marketing process and discipline. And it works.

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“I worked with Tom Lanen for well over 25 years. You don’t work with someone for that long unless they bring you real value. Whether it was a poster series at Boston Whaler, a brochure at LoJack, or research, sales promotion and dealer support at Keurig, he’s always taken the time to understand my needs, and then made it happen, exceeding expectations.”

Dave Manley, Senior VP, Core Systems Innovation (Retired), Green Mountain, Keurig Premium Coffee Systems

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Now hiring Dave, if you can draw him out of beach-side retirement, might be one option. Or you could make a far more moderate—and affordable—investment and hire me. I’ll listen, and then show you the best options to meet your goals. And the means to measure your outcomes.

So what’s your marketing and sales/revenue strategy for the economic period ahead? Here’s one to start: let’s chat on my nickel for few moments. I may be just the resource you need to kick-start some sustained momentum.

Today is good. Tom- | 508 951-0130

Coaching youth soccer was one of the most fun and most satisfying, albeit challenging dad things I did when my sons were young. Not that I knew what I was doing; I did not. I’d never played it as a youth, and in fact my only connections to the game came from a Danish soccer team wear client I had during the 1994 World Cup in the USA; and through osmosis from my creative partner, an Irish National designer, who lived and breathed the game.

But knowing all out enthusiasm had carried me through many challenges about which I knew nothing, I accepted several coaching roles for all my sons, and my teams always seemed to enjoy the game, as did I.

My biggest challenge came when I picked up a H-14 youth soccer team the final year my oldest son played.

I’d been warned by the league coordinator when I took on the team: two of the guys on the team had given their coaches mass quantities of grief throughout their youth soccer career.

Now 14-years old, both had fallen right on the cusp of the singular toughest team to make in our schools: the 19-person Middle School 8th grade boys team. And I could see from how they both stood aside they felt they didn’t belong to my gang.

Frankly I was concerned, unconvinced they’d play well with others or even bother to play to their athletic levels. But after watching them, I could see they both had skills. And smarts.

Fact too was I liked them both. Maybe it was they reminded me of me. And knowing what I’d respond to at that age (or even now) gave me an idea.

So, at the start of our second practice I pulled each aside, and after asking them what they thought about the team, and listening to their answers, had one thought for each of them:

“Jay/Miguel, as coach I’m seeing some real possibility in you: I’d like you (and the other) to step up and take a leadership role in the team, and help me out.”

Of course, they were both suspicious. But when I announced they would be the Co-Captains for the first 3 matches, their pride was palpable. Recognition is a wonderful rehabilitator of the spirit.

You know, they stepped up and got it done, both becoming the team’s high scorers and toughest defenders.

They also became remarkably tolerant with their less skilled teammates, and put a halt to any unkind taunts or put-downs not uncommon in middle school society.

And, when others were named single-game captains, they were still the team’s leaders; the guys looked up to them and emulated their play.

What I learned that season has carried over to my professional life as a strategy and brand marketing coach to this day. Because one of the first things I look for in my clients’ staffs are those willing to rock the boat. Hidden leaders. Though they’re not all that hard to spot: they aren’t angry as much as they are impatient, and may even seem a little discontent about their limited roles. And they are always just a little smarter than the average bear.

Of course, there are always neer-do-wells, the “entitled,” and those who are patently dishonest (or worse, liars); and they need to be isolated as soon as discovered. Nasty is nasty.

But given my baseline requirements for intelligence, honesty, and a sense of decency, I’ve most always found troublemakers take risk to heart; and who, given the opportunity, will take the ball and run.

Then again, ‘trouble’ is always in the eye of the beholder, a matter of degree. And you can be sure my guys gave the competition big trouble that season. No, we didn’t win the league, but it was as good a season as I had in my 8 seasons as a youth soccer coach.

Now 10 years later, Miguel has returned to his native land, but I still run into Jay now and then at the local grocery store; and he looks happy as he takes on the world — on his terms.

And when I see him he always pays me what I consider the supreme compliment. He calls out “hey Coach!”

That he thinks of me in this manner, well, I think of it as an annuity on my investment in my teams — one that’s paid me handsomely time and again.

To say nothing of the impact these troublemakers have had on their friends, and peers.

A troublemaker from the word go, I’ve retired from youth soccer coaching and have gratefully taken to watching Premier League football, happy to let others have some good dad fun every weekend morning.

Tag: strategy

How Two Youth Soccer ‘Troublemakers’ Helped Me Devise A Strategy To Find Hidden Leaders