Toward A More Journalistic Approach To Marketing
A few weeks ago I heard Malcolm Gladwell speak to an audience of homebuilding industry CEOs about how people make decisions or judgments. That is also the general topic of his most recent book, Blink, which explores two ways of decision-making: 1) the data-driven to the nth degree, information-full judgment call, and 2) the seemingly more gut-based judgment call. You probably know where he took it from there - toward giving the “gut” type a bit more credit.
In this time of economic downturn, it is worth it for marketers do just that. The data has not served us all that well lately (part of why the country is in the mess), and, here’s the thing: Most of you reading this newsletter are primed for very well educated gut decisions as it is. Simply because of your years of experience in marketing decision-making, your brain is well fertilized for growing wise and quick judgment calls based on less input. You just have to trust that this is so, and educate your colleagues to do the same.
One way to get more practice at the gut approach is to take a more journalistic approach to gathering and using information - another point I took from Gladwell’s presentation. Consider that journalists have been trained to filter out helpful and unhelpful input very quickly, and they have absolute parameters (in time and budget) that force them to make judgment calls or raise points with a lot less data and a lot more gut.
Non-journalist types have learned that the more input the better, sometimes no matter how long it takes. Marketers, for the most part, do not get rewarded for gut decisions as often as they are recognized for the brand dollars and consulting time that went into a new product development or strategy (”Brand XYZ spent eight gazillion dollars and thousands of consulting hours to come up with this fabulous new ad campaign approach.”)
I have noticed over my years monitoring the marketing to women realm that the big, quantitative and much publicized gender-focused studies certainly produce the results we expect, but perhaps not the insights we seek. However, when you add cross-industry or cross-discipline sources to the usual mix of research and data, and practice, practice, practice filtering out what’s important and what is not, you will be taking a more journalistic and often more trend spotting approach (that not a lot of your competitors are even attempting).
Consider the insights into how men and women buy that might be gleaned from any one interpersonal relationship self-help book. (Now, THAT’s “cross-industry”!) Or, isn’t it possible for a financial services brand to go way off their usual marketing track and learn about how to serve women from auto manufacturers or skincare companies? Yes.
What to do with this commentary of mine? Women’s market students like you and I should strive to take this more journalistic approach. No need to mire ourselves completely in the same old reports and studies that everyone else is reading, but instead, while still giving those things a look, we should also: 1) do our own, as grassroots-as-possible consumer connecting, 2) review all sorts of non-industry marketing case studies or ad campaign best practices, and 3) just become aware of the interconnectedness of random bits of information.
You never really know how your greatest trend spotting or marketing ideas will emerge. Regularly feeding your brain with broad and varied input will seed a unique knowledge bank for powerful marketing ideas that seem, to your competitors, to come from nowhere. But you will know that they came from a trusted and seasoned source indeed.
