Sunday 31 May 2015
mARTsketing: The creeping malaise of consultant-itis
mARTsketing: The creeping malaise of consultant-itis: You see it in the public service but also in many bodies that are similar or related to Government. The idea that one can never implement a ...
The creeping malaise of consultant-itis
You see it in the public service but also in many bodies that are similar or related to Government. The idea that one can never implement a major change or new idea without bringing in a consultant first to advise on the correct way to go.
I've never understood this.
Sure if you are a small organisation and you lack the resources or internal know-how to determine which way to jump on a particular matter, but for larger places... for instance why would you need a website consultant to advise on a particular matter when you already have an experienced website manager running a team of people?
Surely that manager has the skills to determine what we need to do and assess what resources are required to do it?
The answer is usually yes but in this hypothetical (and I'm being careful here to talk in hypotheticals!) what is happening is NOT that that Manager NEEDS the advice of the consultant, but that the manager NEEDS is a mechanism to share the blame around if the project in question fails."Well we ALL signed off on the consultant's report."
I personally have never sought a consultant to advise on a course of action, perhaps it's a failing of mine. I have generally sought counsel both internally and externally and then argued for the direction I have determined upon the weight of evidence and advice.
When you bring in a consultant to cover your arse, what you are really saying is A. the organisation I work for has a culture of blame and this is a necessary precaution against that, or B. I know what we want to do but I lack the leadership skills or confidence to make the recommendation on my own, maybe C. I'm in the wrong job and lack the expertise to do my role or the scope of my role has grown so much I am now managing things that are beyond my expertise. It might even be D. my organisation has the wrong attitude when it comes to risk and failure even though risk and failure is where you learn and can produce excellent results.
In any case it's not good.
But there's a different type of external advice that I do value. I value the role of an external, knowledgeable facilitator. When you have a planning day or brainstorming sessions with a talented facilitator you aren't abrogating your responsibilities, you are saying to the team of staff is "right we are all going to play a role in determining the next step" and the facilitator merely keeps the day on track and then you outsource the note-taking function afterwards to them, the responsibility stays with the team and the manager, but its shared and you haven't basically admitted that "yes even though we are supposed to be experts, we're bringing in ANOTHER expert to tell us what to do."
So facilitators, yes, consultation no - got it?
Basically a consultation heavy culture is a culture mired in mediocrity, it is a culture that does not value true leadership, lacks confidence in the expertise of its staff and has an attitude to risk that virtually guarantees that none are ever taken, culling out both the possible negatives but also the potential massive upsides.
A consultant culture is one that wastes both time and money. We work in a digital age, so many initiatives can be trialed on a live audience reviewed and rejected and new programs implemented that the need to alleviate risk falls victim to the speed with which we can have a go at things and move on.
The future belongs to small nimble organisations that are willing to have a go, while slow lumbering dinosaurs wait for a consultants report to be tabled at X or Y meeting before consider their next move.
I've never understood this.
Sure if you are a small organisation and you lack the resources or internal know-how to determine which way to jump on a particular matter, but for larger places... for instance why would you need a website consultant to advise on a particular matter when you already have an experienced website manager running a team of people?
Surely that manager has the skills to determine what we need to do and assess what resources are required to do it?
The answer is usually yes but in this hypothetical (and I'm being careful here to talk in hypotheticals!) what is happening is NOT that that Manager NEEDS the advice of the consultant, but that the manager NEEDS is a mechanism to share the blame around if the project in question fails."Well we ALL signed off on the consultant's report."
I personally have never sought a consultant to advise on a course of action, perhaps it's a failing of mine. I have generally sought counsel both internally and externally and then argued for the direction I have determined upon the weight of evidence and advice.
When you bring in a consultant to cover your arse, what you are really saying is A. the organisation I work for has a culture of blame and this is a necessary precaution against that, or B. I know what we want to do but I lack the leadership skills or confidence to make the recommendation on my own, maybe C. I'm in the wrong job and lack the expertise to do my role or the scope of my role has grown so much I am now managing things that are beyond my expertise. It might even be D. my organisation has the wrong attitude when it comes to risk and failure even though risk and failure is where you learn and can produce excellent results.
In any case it's not good.
But there's a different type of external advice that I do value. I value the role of an external, knowledgeable facilitator. When you have a planning day or brainstorming sessions with a talented facilitator you aren't abrogating your responsibilities, you are saying to the team of staff is "right we are all going to play a role in determining the next step" and the facilitator merely keeps the day on track and then you outsource the note-taking function afterwards to them, the responsibility stays with the team and the manager, but its shared and you haven't basically admitted that "yes even though we are supposed to be experts, we're bringing in ANOTHER expert to tell us what to do."
So facilitators, yes, consultation no - got it?
Basically a consultation heavy culture is a culture mired in mediocrity, it is a culture that does not value true leadership, lacks confidence in the expertise of its staff and has an attitude to risk that virtually guarantees that none are ever taken, culling out both the possible negatives but also the potential massive upsides.
A consultant culture is one that wastes both time and money. We work in a digital age, so many initiatives can be trialed on a live audience reviewed and rejected and new programs implemented that the need to alleviate risk falls victim to the speed with which we can have a go at things and move on.
The future belongs to small nimble organisations that are willing to have a go, while slow lumbering dinosaurs wait for a consultants report to be tabled at X or Y meeting before consider their next move.
Thursday 28 May 2015
mARTsketing: Playing with your brand: a quick DO's and DON'T's ...
mARTsketing: Playing with your brand: a quick DO's and DON'T's ...: We've all been there, the temptation is irresistible. St Patrick's Day is approaching and the Boss thinks we should 'Do somet...
Playing with your brand: a quick DO's and DON'T's list
We've all been there, the temptation is irresistible.
St Patrick's Day is approaching and the Boss thinks we should 'Do something'. Maybe something on social media perhaps?
Before anyone goes any further your mind flashes forward to changing the colour of your logo to a bright emerald green, perhaps it gets a jaunty Leprechaun's hat, tipped just so, maybe there's some clip art of the tipsy little fella that you can lean up against your logo like a drunk against a lamp post.
To a traditional trained marketer these ideas sound TERRIBLE. And by and large they are.
I mean look at this.
But when you try and explain the Marketing 101 reasons why this is terrible - brands require consistency etc you just come off like a wet blanket.
Also the days when you could say "Well Coke or Telstra don't change their colours?" doesn't work as more and more big brands are willing to play with their brands and logos albeit in structured methodical ways.
So when should you change your logo for St Pats, Day, Gay Pride week or whatever?
Here are my tips:
And that's really it. I don't think it should be a blanket or a wet-blanket NO to ideas to modify one's brand to fit an event, but it needs to be done tastefully, authentically and be in keeping with your brand personality.
St Patrick's Day is approaching and the Boss thinks we should 'Do something'. Maybe something on social media perhaps?
Before anyone goes any further your mind flashes forward to changing the colour of your logo to a bright emerald green, perhaps it gets a jaunty Leprechaun's hat, tipped just so, maybe there's some clip art of the tipsy little fella that you can lean up against your logo like a drunk against a lamp post.
To a traditional trained marketer these ideas sound TERRIBLE. And by and large they are.
I mean look at this.
But when you try and explain the Marketing 101 reasons why this is terrible - brands require consistency etc you just come off like a wet blanket.
Also the days when you could say "Well Coke or Telstra don't change their colours?" doesn't work as more and more big brands are willing to play with their brands and logos albeit in structured methodical ways.
So when should you change your logo for St Pats, Day, Gay Pride week or whatever?
Here are my tips:
- Does the event/situation fit with your brand personality or values? I currently work at a Uni, I would say a big NO to St Pats day, linking oneself to public drunkenness is a bad look for concerned parents. But a big yes to Gay Pride week. It fits our values and personality.
- Is there something in your brand armory that you alter without it looking terrible/unprofessional? For instance my Uni's logo is simply too fine to carry off being made gay-pride rainbow (which would also look terrible), but there is a lot of real estate on our website and social media pages that we could professionally and tastefully use to show our support. We could find a same sex couple kissing and use that in keeping with our current photography driven house style.
- Is there a way to connect yourself to this event etc without looking like a dodgy corporate? My Uni has an Indigenous Action Plan among other things, we can totally align ourselves with Sorry Day or NAIDOC Week with this a proof point of our support. However we don't really have much of a connection with Rugby League so we can't really do anything to leverage State of Origin. It's all about behaving authentically.
And that's really it. I don't think it should be a blanket or a wet-blanket NO to ideas to modify one's brand to fit an event, but it needs to be done tastefully, authentically and be in keeping with your brand personality.
Friday 22 May 2015
mARTsketing: Tertiary Education Marketing: Know the fight
mARTsketing: Tertiary Education Marketing: Know the fight: Back in my time in the Arts I wrote a blog about how simply thinking about the true terms of your product can be instructive as to how to ma...
Tertiary Education Marketing: Know the fight
Back in my time in the Arts I wrote a blog about how simply thinking about the true terms of your product can be instructive as to how to market yourself and in setting priorities.
The same is true for Universities too although with some distinctions.
'Know the fight', its a phrase learnt from Captain America of all things but its so true, when you re in the middle of a battle it helps to now what kind of battle you are in, is this the main game? Is this a distraction? What is the purpose of this fight?
Back in the days when University places were capped there wasn't really much pressure at all to market yourself, demand outstripped supply for many courses so those that didn't get into Nursing at University A flowed into University B.
The effect of this seemed to lead a lot of Universities into focusing n the rand, it was enough that you got your brand out there and you didn't need to focus on Return on Investment much (ROI).
In an uncapped environment all of a sudden you needed to actually attract students, they had choices finally.
So 'know the fight'. Firstly and most obviously Universities provide a service not a product and we know that the customer experience is everything when it comes to providing a service, having quality call centre, having smooth application processes, having online learning tools that work and your class schedules don't clash too much and finally the experience is fruitful and positive. When you are a service, word of mouth is king and you fail to invest in these things at your peril.
But what other kinds of 'fight' is tertiary marketing? Well most of the sector markets itself like a premium product. For the post part I disagree, in fact I would argue universities actually sit at the other end of the scale, its a mandatory purchase for many, like insurance, whilst for others its a commodity, people just want a degree where that degree comes from and how its delivered is of little concern.
Luckily the process of selling a premium product is similar to that of a mandatory purchase, you need a constant market presence so that when people reach the time of their or their children's life that Uni is needed, your brand is on the shopping list and is well thought of, it sounds crazy but this is how funeral homes market themselves.
Fighting against commodification is harder, commodities such as flour and salt really sell on price and pricing is not a factor in a Uni under the current system. Th fight here is to convince people that they can't just do their degree anywhere but you NEED to do it with us. Which means you have to look for things that you can do better, do those things better and then adequately communicate this.
What's great about both of these above challenges is that content marketing and market automation are ideally suited to these tasks. The Uni I work for is smaller and therefore is not betraying trade secrets to say that our marketing budgets are therefore smaller than many competitors too. So the idea of maintaining a constant market presence in the old mainstream advertising manner is just not feasible. But with marketing automation we can target our markets precisely and ensure that we are engaging with them regularly to maintain a brand presence and via content marketing you can engage those people with exactly the sort of 'stories' that reduce the commodity effect.
We are only at the beginning of these processes, so it is too early to tell what the results will be but the theory is incredibly sound and it will be exciting to find out if it works.
The same is true for Universities too although with some distinctions.
'Know the fight', its a phrase learnt from Captain America of all things but its so true, when you re in the middle of a battle it helps to now what kind of battle you are in, is this the main game? Is this a distraction? What is the purpose of this fight?
Back in the days when University places were capped there wasn't really much pressure at all to market yourself, demand outstripped supply for many courses so those that didn't get into Nursing at University A flowed into University B.
The effect of this seemed to lead a lot of Universities into focusing n the rand, it was enough that you got your brand out there and you didn't need to focus on Return on Investment much (ROI).
In an uncapped environment all of a sudden you needed to actually attract students, they had choices finally.
So 'know the fight'. Firstly and most obviously Universities provide a service not a product and we know that the customer experience is everything when it comes to providing a service, having quality call centre, having smooth application processes, having online learning tools that work and your class schedules don't clash too much and finally the experience is fruitful and positive. When you are a service, word of mouth is king and you fail to invest in these things at your peril.
But what other kinds of 'fight' is tertiary marketing? Well most of the sector markets itself like a premium product. For the post part I disagree, in fact I would argue universities actually sit at the other end of the scale, its a mandatory purchase for many, like insurance, whilst for others its a commodity, people just want a degree where that degree comes from and how its delivered is of little concern.
Luckily the process of selling a premium product is similar to that of a mandatory purchase, you need a constant market presence so that when people reach the time of their or their children's life that Uni is needed, your brand is on the shopping list and is well thought of, it sounds crazy but this is how funeral homes market themselves.
Fighting against commodification is harder, commodities such as flour and salt really sell on price and pricing is not a factor in a Uni under the current system. Th fight here is to convince people that they can't just do their degree anywhere but you NEED to do it with us. Which means you have to look for things that you can do better, do those things better and then adequately communicate this.
What's great about both of these above challenges is that content marketing and market automation are ideally suited to these tasks. The Uni I work for is smaller and therefore is not betraying trade secrets to say that our marketing budgets are therefore smaller than many competitors too. So the idea of maintaining a constant market presence in the old mainstream advertising manner is just not feasible. But with marketing automation we can target our markets precisely and ensure that we are engaging with them regularly to maintain a brand presence and via content marketing you can engage those people with exactly the sort of 'stories' that reduce the commodity effect.
We are only at the beginning of these processes, so it is too early to tell what the results will be but the theory is incredibly sound and it will be exciting to find out if it works.
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