Marketers from Akzonobel, Chelsea FC, Disney and Tesco Bank debate a hot topic, TSB's Pete Markey tries his hand at improv comedy, we chat to Stonewall's Jan Gooding and board members from Sainsbury's Bank, Sony Music and Microsoft tell us leaders in life that they love
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TSB Bank's CMO, Pete Markey, shares lessons learned from the world of improv comedy, such as being present and not conforming (5 MINS)
After Dave Trott said they just chase trends we asked marketers from Chelsea FC, Akzonobel, Disney, B&Q and HSBC whether they agreed (5 MINS)
Society board members: Sainsbury's Bank's Mick Doran, Sony Music's Mike Fairburn and Microsoft's Peter DeBenedictis tell us leaders in life they love (2 MINS)
Ahead of her Ogilvy Lecture at Amplify Marketing Festival, Stonewall's Jan Gooding shares her best and worst advice and peak career moment (2 MINS)
Nervous attendees of an antenatal class being advised by a highly nervous junior midwife keen to impress. Or was it? The scene featured four improv performers who seconds before hand had discovered the scene then had to act out, with no script, no props and no sense of where the scene would go.
Learning to do improvised comedy over the past six months for me has been a voyage of rediscovering the lost art of improvisation in life and in business. Each week I am learning new skills, working with great people at Dingbats Improv, helped by the brilliant Ed Pithie (our Jedi Master in Improv).
Improvised comedy is an art in working with others from pairs to groups of 4 or more acting out scenes or moments completely unscripted. This is the art of thinking on your feet, under pressure and working together to deliver something great. As well as being a midwife, my recent “roles” have included a baker, knight, surgeon, astronaut and alien – not bad for a boy from Surrey.
Improvised comedy as a skill has grown in popularity over the past few years with rave reviews in the Harvard Business Review, The Guardian and many other online articles that talk about the skills modern leaders need in order to succeed. These articles underline how improv helps bring new thinking into businesses and helps individuals and teams with their mental health and wellbeing and creative expression.
So often in our business lives we make decisions and get things done in a process like manner that often misses the opportunity for fresh and original thinking or a moment of improvisation. I’ve found this particularly true over my own career how its too easy to get into a comfortable rhythm of operating in a way that allows little or no room for improvisation or new thinking.
For me as a marketer, we need to rediscover this lost art. Marketers should bring a unique skillset to a business. We are commercial, yet creative. We are project managers yet help shape new approaches and drive innovation. We are tasked to find break throughs in industries where established thinking has reached its natural end and we are tasked with bringing the latest in customer insight and thinking to the table. Marketers have a unique role to play.
I’ve found that learning improv has not only helped me in the lessons themselves (great fun, stretches your thinking and lots of laughs) but also at work too, where I’ve found more and more opportunities to bring new thinking to the table and to work better under pressure. I recently ran a session at our senior legal team’s away day to teach them some improv skills and it was great to see them experience the benefits for themselves first hand!
I’d recommend every marketer to try their hand at a skill like improv where they can learn to be their best under pressure and can think creatively on their feet. My challenge is that if marketers aren’t bringing this lost art back to business then who else is?
Businesses that want to succeed need marketers to step up to the plate and deliver and skills like improv help you do exactly that…
My key lessons for marketers from improvised comedy:
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No I do not agree with that statement as a whole and would reword it to read that Young marketing execs are interested in keeping up with trends and, as a result, are frequently updating and re-evaluating their brands threats and opportunities. The basics in any good marketing department are not optional and young marketing leaders will value and promote the use of basic tools such as a SWOT. I strongly believe, and I know I’m not alone in my peer group, in the importance taking the time in the upfront to move ahead with pace and agility throughout the rest of the project/campaign.
No. I personally disagree that young marketers today only care about new trends in marketing. Many that I mentor are looking to learn important processes and methods to further enhance their marketing skills, including what is viewed as traditional techniques e.g Maslow.
Let's not stereotype a whole generation of marketers when we should be encouraging them instead. If we feel they aren't engaged in traditional marketing knowledge, what can we do as a collective to change that?
No. I think it is too sweeping a claim. However, I do think ‘SWOT’ manifests in different ways – for example in the entertainment industry it is more ‘part and parcel’ of strategy to launch content (not always called out or have a slide dedicated to the ‘grid’ as it may have been in the past). Keeping up with trends are a necessary part of a marketer's role, but when looking at the media mix for any campaign, ‘trends’ are still considered / rejected on merit. Activation still needs to be grounded in reality, but it is the responsibility of senior leaders to guide their teams and ensure marketing delivers against key objectives not passing fads.
Maybe. Swot analysis lacks clarity and can also become outdated quickly.
It is often not based on real data but more of internal brainstorming, whereas trends are based on more accurate and realistic data, which allow more accurate forecasting.
Marketing is changing as our eco/socio environment changes to meet the demand of consumers, SWOT maybe the basic principles or the building blocks, but times are changing and so should the techniques.
No. I think rather than not being interested; it is more a case of being unaware of the academic foundations of marketing. With “marketers” entering businesses via a multitude of different educational and career paths, awareness and practical application of these tools are low and declining.
It therefore falls either to the young marketer to be curious- potentially seeking a mentor in a business or to the company to implement a marketing capability programme to ensure the basics are known and applied.
No. Young marketers are increasingly expected to not only help deliver business strategy and outcomes, but also provide strong evidence of where the marketing budget went, how it was used and what benefit to the business it has brought. Business stakeholders expect marketing to be so much more than a ‘colouring department keeping up with fashionable trends’ – they are key partners who contribute to customer and commercial growth shaping the business direction through insight, as well as continuous refinement and testing of collateral on the back of effectiveness KPIs and measurements.
Maybe. Do we really need to learn SWOT analysis? Isn’t it just another acronym for organising common-sense findings? It certainly has a place in this world, but so do the multitude of alternative models that help marketers keep abreast of consumer sentiment and desire.
I think failure to evolve and embrace new technology-driven methodologies (and the trends they identify) is more likely to leave you trailing behind. Incidentally, SWOT might be ‘old-fashioned’, but the ‘millennials are lazy’ trope is what’s really getting old.
Maybe. When it comes to the next-gen versus old school marketing debate, I'll happily stand on neutral ground. On the one hand, I believe that marketing fundamentals provide structure and strategy for cohesive marketing. On the other hand, digital platforms and social media update almost weekly, meaning that the new wave of advertisers have to adapt quickly. If both ideologies are combined, you can turn a trend into treasure.
After all, marketing dialogue should react to popular culture – trendy or not.
We asked three Society board members - one from Scotland and two from Dubai - which leader(s) in life they love, here's what they had to say.
Jo Malone CBE For her passion and resilience; her honesty in learning most from her mistakes and her continued success. Jacco van der Linden, MD Heineken Greater China For his inspiring approach to customer marketing and innovation; his unwavering vision; his no nonsense approach to leadership and team building and his focus on results.
Jimmy Iovine A music pioneer, leader and industry innovator. He has built his own - and many others’ - careers through a combination of natural talent, creative brilliance, hard work, gut feel and relentless energy to get the job done.
Joe Torre - manager of the New York Yankees from 1996 to 2007 when they won the championship four times. He had a mediocre managerial record before he took over, but took the best of what he knew and succeeded. He worked for a boss notorious for firing managers, but he made it work. His approach to dealing with the press, the star players, the tough NY fans, was to always be the calm voice in the storm.
Always recruit people who you find interesting because they are brighter and more capable than you are.
Not to be ‘out’ at work as a lesbian when I joined Aviva. It negatively affected my performance and inhibited my sense of belonging.
The importance of sleep.
The notion of meritocracy. It’s a fallacy.
Working directly for the CEO of BT Retail, Pierre Danon, as his Head of Strategic Communication for a year. It was better than an MBA.
Every team offsite with Amanda MacKenzie, Nigel Prideaux and Sam White. Priceless.
Making talented people redundant because of incompetence elsewhere in the organisation.
I hope it is yet to come.
