Avasta

Are your marketing strategies built on solid ground, or are you sinking into the quicksand of misleading data? Join me, Chris Morrison, and Edgar Baum, CEO of Avasta, for a hard-hitting LinkedIn Live session where we’ll expose the hidden traps of over-relying on data in marketing. Edgar, a thought leader in corporate strategy, will share his expertise on how businesses can fall into the “Big Data Trap” and how to navigate around it. You’ll learn: - Why Big Data can sometimes mislead rather than guide. - Common marketing tactics that derail disruptive product launches. - How to build evidence-based strategies that withstand market uncertainties. Whether you're in MedTech or launching a cutting-edge tech product, don’t let flawed data sink your efforts. This session will give you the tools to recognize when you're veering off course—and how to correct it fast. ?? Mark your calendars for Thursday, October 3, 2024. Don't miss out! Let’s challenge conventional wisdom together and build resilient, data-informed strategies. Tag a colleague who needs to hear this! #MarketingStrategy #BigData #ProductLaunch #DisruptiveInnovation #MedTech #ChrisMorrison #EdgarBaum

Here is a question for the wilds of LinkedIn. If you've discovered that you were interacting with an AI agent instead of a person in emails or DMs (but was portrayed as a human) how does it change your likelihood of buying a product or service from the company?

Alright! Here is my takeaway from Day 2 at ADWEEK's #BrandWeek. Slightly different takeaways this time: More of interesting things I heard on stage or in conversation and what I took away (really, Edgar's rambles if you know me). 1. Marketing is an Investment, Not a Cost Centre This just reinforced one of my "Why is it taking so long?" moments. If Marketing is a cost centre, every damn P&L line item is a cost centre - it takes spending money to make money and it just aggravates me that people think that marketing is so immaterial. It is like any other investment in a company - you buy a piece of equipment because it is going to save you money over time or make you money over time. A dumb thing that an organization can do is to avoid measuring the impact of each of their investments and assuming their effectiveness because 'that is the way it has always been.' I have worked with loads of companies that over invested into equipment because the vendor promised revenue. Buying equipment doesn't generate revenue, generating demand for your products generates demand to buy equipment to fulfill the demand. Watch out what wags the dog here. 2. Nearly everyone on stage acknowledged that we need to be human to human in creation and execution Yet this seems novel and hardly anyone is doing it. People are still mostly making personas up, even if they use research - and then they start relating to their personas as 'real' and who they want as customers vs the fiction that they are. This reminded me of my last point of my presentation at a conference last week that we have to remember that "there is no business without a customer and all customers are human." It also reinforced why it aggravates me why so much of the financial, sales, and marketing technology that we have is dehumanizing and making almost everyone an abstract number from a supposedly infinite pool. 3. Influencers (content creators, athletes, celebrities) are the pathway to brand relevance Disclaimer right off the bat: DO NOT TAKE THIS AS A UNIVERSAL TRUTH that you all of a sudden need an influencer strategy. However, the point of relatability is so critical in our 'sea of sameness' in the world and to bring in the emotional bond on purchases - and there are a lot of different emotional bonds - intimacy, trust, excitement, friendliness, etc. that needs to be understood. Influencers are now often the shorthand due the quick way in which we remember - don't forget, brands are to instil memory recall around a purchase that matters to the buyer whether for oneself, for another, for a business or an organization. People spend much more time with and about what we now call influencers because they are part of our every day life and, when done right, provide that extra surge of relatability or trust to make a purchase. Why does this matter? Because every purchase is first past the post. No one goes around buying the front half of a BMW and the back of a Ford.

OK, OK, OK. I'm like 2 days late but here is my Day 1 takeaway from ADWEEK's #BrandWeek. So what did I see/hear/feel? Day 2 coming imminently, and Day 3 tonight (there is also a day 3.5 tomorrow!). Will put links to those in comments. I didn't attend all sessions (some were doubled up) but I had many conversations. (Biggest convos takeaway? There is a real lack of knowledge how marketing and commercial challenges and opportunities can be measured in advance of execution.) Below is a summary from the sessions I managed to attend. Alexis Ohanian Sr. from Seven.Seven.Six. made a very poignant point that it truly matters who brings forth a great business idea hence why he is putting his money forward in situations where great founders would be at a disadvantage - this demonstrates the role of awareness, credibility, and endorsement, all rolling together into what makes a brand. Raja Rajamannar from Mastercard shared some very relevant research. The typical consumer today receives 5,000 messages/ads/etc. a day and are down to 8 seconds of time in paying attention to these messages. He shared about the fact that the business is increasingly moving away from marketing-led to experience-led strategies and demonstrated that in the creation of tactile cards for those visually impaired to distinguish between credit and debit and the launch of the first patented haptic brand. There was much more. A presentation with Jennifer Chase from SAS and John Blackwell from The Nature Conservancy about how the use of clean data, analytics, and AI makes marketing and consumer (donor) outreach much more effective and counteract industry trends. The emphasis of creating AI with 'human in the loop' really spoke to me as I still hold concerns around 0-100 AI and has AI be a teammate, not a replacement or fix. Will Lee then led a great panel on the disconnect between the composition of our population demographics vs their representation in advertising. This was truly pronounced with the older, 60+ segment of the population and makes me ask all companies, how conscious they are about being representative of their buyers in their advertising. I had many conversations throughout the day with attendees. My biggest Day 1 takeaways from conversations: 1. Attendees are recognizing that not everyone is their customer but struggling to figure out who actually is 2. Marketing is in a sea of sameness across categories as all organizations are using similar processes and efforts - finding a way to break through the dumbing noise is gaining traction 3. Total Addressable Market is misleading and leadership is thirsting for a legitimate alternative 4. The customer base is not infinite and customers as humans vs numbers and financial results is becoming more prominent. 5. There are too many marketing channels. Companies are now looking for most efficient channels, not just the cheapest or highest reach - digital is truly commodified

Excited to share about the learnings and implications from our collaboration with Liquid Agency on challenger brands and incumbent leaders in numerous B2B and B2C categories! I invite you to join this virtual event through the link below. Feel free to DM me with any questions in advance. https://lnkd.in/gh8S3uEp

Tuesday thought trickles... The past couple of weeks I've been on podcasts and livecasts (links below in comments) about how to think about valuation of companies in today's age. I've had interesting private feedback about what I've said. In brief, I'm encouraging people to consider that their valuation is tied directly to the clarity that they can demonstrate about the viability of their business strategy. The clarity of the business strategy is reflected in the current and latent (time-lagged) demand for their products and services. Essentially Success Strategy = Driving Market Demand = High Valuation. There is a lot expectation that people have that valuation is predicated on industry multiples and how they're performing relative to those multiples. However, everyone is aspiring to hit the high end of valuation without demonstrating how their strategy & market demand is demonstrated in their internal data and external signals. Ideas are not enough. While our work at Avasta isn't about putting a 'value' on companies, the practices that we use to uncover more viable or valid strategic pathways for our clients reliably end up driving a clearer articulation of our clients' valuations. Why? Because we're measuring current and potential demand for their offering as THEIR CUSTOMER BASE understands them (or frequently not). Getting this clarity on who in their customer base is a match to their strategy unlock insight into their Winnable Addressable Market (WAM) and how much they have sold to/have space to sell to in this segment. Link to our introduction of WAM at a conference earlier this year. It frequently enables our clients to make sense of why things are/aren't happening within their sales/marketing/channel partner environments and what is in their control to shift the narrative (hint: its usually being laser focused on their WAM). There are companies that have through intuition, experience, relentless iteration found their WAM and served them exceptionally (these are your sustainable hyper growth companies, whether in tech or other spaces like logistics) I'm continuing to unpack how to Success Strategy = Driving Market Demand = High Valuation and will share here and in other places how clearly understanding your WAM typically drives 80% of successful strategy, drives 80% of profitable demand, and drives 80% of Valuation. Feel free to comment below or DM me on what I've said or thoughts it has opened up for you.

a pleasure to be at Marketing-Accountability-Standards-Board summer summit and speaking about the role of brand in driving revenue and valuation in a private equity owned setting along with Dawn Colossi ! We should have a recording from our presentation made available later this month so comment below or DM and we'll make sure you get the link! #MarketingAccountability