5 Marketing Lessons Learned in Combat (2008)

In the summer of 2006 Sadr City, the Shi'a district of northeastern Baghdad was a mess. A true danger zone in every sense of the word. A 2 mile by 2 mile square slum filled with Mahdi militia bad guys and 2 million poverty stricken Iraqis. Occasional street fighting occurred, and many night raids took place as the Band of Brothers of the 101st and Special Operations tried to find key leaders. Meanwhile, during the day, average citizens tried to get on with life, eke out a living, go to the markets, and feed their children. This is the place I called home. I was a Civil Affairs Officer with an A-Team trying to aid and protect the innocent non-combatants, improve the infrastructure, kick start small businesses, and help the newly elected government move to self-reliance and overall effectiveness. It was there in East Baghdad running 4-6 missions a week that I learned some important lessons I would apply in business. It was also here in September of 2006 that was shot by sniper and almost died.

About a year after my return home, in 2008 I was asked to share some insights at the Masters of Marketing Conference on my experiences in Baghdad and how they related to the marketing research and advertising effectiveness business of Millward Brown, a WPP company. Those thoughts which follow were captured in a 10 minute video here.

The first bit of advice that I came up with is ‘Next time somebody's shooting at you...DUCK!’. But I figured that that didn't have a lot of business applications, so I skipped that one. But I did come up with five that I wanted to go through real quick.

ACCOUNTABILITY. The first one is accountability. In the marketer survey conducted by Millward Brown, the number one issue that their clients were facing was accountability. People have been saying for years that the CMO and the CFO really do have to be on the same sheet of music and they have to be on the same sheet of music with the CEO.

One of the things that was interesting when I was in Baghdad is any time you had to go out on a mission, there had to be a clear goal and there had to be measurable results. And you had to report to the Colonel and you had to report those to the General, but that's not what's interesting. What was interesting is about six weeks into this, the 20 soldiers that I would travel with every day to go out on these various missions began to ask that question. And it was very interesting because they were thinking and asking, "Is it worth me risking my life?" So there was no way for me to escape that accountability. That mentality actually helped me. Because that meant that if I was going to plan a mission and I was going to leave the wire with those 20 people and they were going to risk their lives, they wanted to know; “Is this important? How are we measuring it? What's going to be done? What are we doing? Is it working?” If I couldn't answer those questions for them, maybe it wasn't worth doing.

So in the same way, I almost think that the CMO cannot escape accountability even if they tried. But for marketing measurement companies, that's really not a crisis, it's an opportunity. Because accountability is not a bad word. Accountability is a good word, especially for researchers because that's how they help folks. They help them go into that board room confidently. They allow people to make fact-based decisions. So, my first lesson learned is to embrace accountability and help your clients embrace accountability, because it's a good thing, not a negative thing.

As discussed in 11 Timeless Principles of Leadership (US Army 1948) one of the principles is ‘Seek responsibility and take accountability for your actions’.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS. I spent an average of two or three hours a night, and then again another hour in the morning before I left the wire, studying all the intelligence reports, looking at all the information. But it was extremely tough because really, I just want to know what routes can I go on and what can’t I go on? And what areas can I go into and what areas can't I go into? My information needs were very basic, but sometimes I would literally have to go through 120 slide PowerPoint deck, filled with charts, graphs, bullet points, maps, photos, timelines, etc. I'm not joking, because there were staffs of people that generated that intelligence data where really what I wanted was actionable insights. So it wasn't unusual to hear a commander at the end of an intelligence brief say, "Well what does this mean?" Or "What do I do with this?"

Therefore, my next bit of advice for marketers and researchers that I took back from the desert is actionable insights. A marketing researcher’s job doesn't really stop when we deliver the report, it's making sure that the client understands exactly what to do with it. Make sure that it gets diffused throughout the organization. That when you hand over a report, it's not data, which is useless and expensive. It's not just information, but it's actionable insights. It tells people and it guides them on the actions that they need to take to be able to do their job properly.

While getting insights and making real adjustments is ideal, another way to gain actionable insights is AFTER the project or campaign. 30 minutes after we returned inside the wire, EVERY TIME we completed a combat mission, we did an after action review. This way we could and would get better and better - improving each time. Repeating best practices and avoiding mistakes. Not all the marketing and advertising campaigns are going to work. But once you have the results, sit and discuss them honestly so that the next effort is better even if only incrementally. Build this meeting and process into your project plan timeline. Even the best campaigns have warts and even the worst have a golden nugget or two. I wrote about this simple and powerful method in ‘Why Is US Army's AAR (After Action Review) Such A Powerful Leadership Tool?’

CROSS FUNCTIONAL TEAMWORK. When I was out there in combat and working on different projects, they almost always involved a collection of skills, experiences, and views. On any given project I might be working with an infantry squad and then I had the Iraqi government officials, the Iraqi bureaucrats, and some engineers. I’d have Iraqi engineers, American engineers. I’d have my interpreter that I had to go with everywhere. The way that I think that this relates to our business in terms of cross functional teams, is that we need to embrace that we're running into an increasingly specialized economy.

So when you look across the entire spectrum of solutions at your disposal, you really can't expect that you or your immediate team is going to be an expert in each area. So what that means is that when we're going out to solve a problem, that means we all need to embrace the specialization and appreciate that there are certain people with expertise that play a role, and you are going to be significantly more effective if you’re approaching the client as a unified team with the appropriate members who have the appropriate experience and expertise.

For example, if I were going to look at a sewage line. I had to have an engineer. I had to have the interpreter if I was going to be talking to them. I had to have the government official that was in charge of sewage lines within Sadr City. So when I relate that to marketing effectiveness, if people are coming to you and they're looking at ROI, maybe you’re bringing in an advertising expert, or creative analyst, maybe you’re bringing in the marketing scientists who study media mix modeling. This actually relieves pressure. You don’t have to know everything or have all the answers. You don’t have to be the expert in the room, it simple means you have to coordinate and embrace the fact that there's a specialization and expertise necessary to solve complex problems and be successful on complex projects.

COMMUNICATION. The fourth point that I want to make is about communication. More specifically, about tailoring communication. Before I headed back into the Army and off to Iraq, I found myself spending a lot of time on email. People would leave a voicemail and I ended up emailing them back. But, you didn't have email on the battlefield. There's a lot of computers on the battlefield, which is a lot different than early 90’s when there was none. But I think about that when I tailor communications. At the very beginning of a project, or what I'll call a combat mission, there's a lot of people that needed a quite a bit of information and many details before I was allowed to leave the wire with my team. But then once you're out there and the project or the mission was ongoing, there's actually a significantly smaller group. And it would be incredibly distracting if I were emailing or talking to or communicating with all these different people that really didn't need to know what was going on minute by minute.

When I think about how that relates to our business, I think just to remember that in the beginning of a project as you're beginning to rally resources, make sure that you're thinking through everyone that needs to be informed. And then as you're ongoing with the project or in my case, ongoing with the mission, when you're giving updates: How frequently? Who should be involved in those? Make sure that you're making the right choices. Then tailor the communication to the audience. Don't invite people to status meetings unless they need to be there.

There was one time where I was on a mission where we were checking in an electrical substation, so I had two U.S. civilians with us. Precious cargo. Then, we heard a fire fight break out down the road. Probably by the gas station and not shooting at us. Either way we decided it was time to go. Well the engineers were inside the actual power plant, but the soldiers were outside. My communication to the soldiers were shouting orders in short, loud, simple sentences "Cover that building. Cover that alleyway. Get these Humvees up here right now." I moved inside the building and I said in a calm soothing voice, "Gentlemen, could you come over here? I'd like to talk to you very briefly." I said, "There's some shooting outside.” They were saucer-eyed. I continued “Don't worry. Don't Run. We are going to step outside here in 30 seconds. The Humvees are going to be 20 feet away. You duck, walk quickly but don't run, and I'm going to get you out of here safely." Same kind of communication, same scenario. But I tailored that communication to two different people on the same mission with the same goal. Maybe we think about that as well.

When I think about tailoring communication, it's also around email. Email I think is a great way to share information. I think it's a terrible form of communication. So when you're thinking about tailoring your communication next time, you're thinking about typing an email or sending a message out to a group of people, maybe you're better off thinking about picking up the phone or maybe jump in your car and go and meet with that client face to face. Think about those things. Think twice before you hit 'reply all'. Start a new string for different groups.

UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM. The last point, is to make sure that you understand the problem correctly. Let's talk about the war overall from just a strategic standpoint. Was the problem Iraq or was the problem global terrorism? Did we come up with the right solution there? If you talk to the State Department they’d say "Oh, we’ve got to build a new government. We got to support the elected government." You talk to somebody in the Army. "All right, we’ve got to go get some bad guys. You’ve got to get some bad guys."

The reality is there's 27 million people that didn't have running water. They didn't have electricity. They didn't have sewage lines, they didn't have trash. There were a lot of different problems. Most people are aware of the phrase “…if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail…”. So, if you've got a hammer and somebody comes to you with a problem, we're going to hammer it, that's it. We're just going to hammer it. But, everyone comes with a different lens. So I guess the lesson learned there for me is that when you're in the discovery process with your clients, take off your lens or put down your hammer and try and really work with them to understand, regardless of what your solutions are, because maybe you’re not the best research partner to help them, but you can be that trusted advisor. In order to have that trusted advisor status, you need to work very hard in that discovery process with our clients, whether it's an issue with research, or other issues that they're having. To truly earn that trusted advisor status you must be strategic in the way that you shape and help them properly identify their challenges and solve their problem.

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As I document and review my presentation in 2020, 12 years later, most of this advice still holds true today. The CMO still struggles in the board room to use the same language at the CEO and CFO. The average tenure remains only 43 months. People are still avoiding accountability or treating is as a bad word, not a positive one. The word “Data Scientist” hadn’t quite made it way into the business lexicon back in 2008, but now more than ever we are overwhelmed by expensive data with a dearth of actionable insights. We have continued our march toward a specialized economy making cross functional teams more critical. For success you need a diversity of experiences and expertise as well. We have gone to text and Snap and even more email communication. Less phone and less face-2-face. Not good. Communication is only 7% words. 93% is non-verbal with body language (55%) and tone of voice (38%). With the fast pace of technology and overall change, now more than ever we must understand the problem. Slow down to get it right the first time.   

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If you enjoyed this post, you may enjoy these two articles that summarize my keynotes for CRN’s Sales and Marketing B2B Conferences:

2017 Best of Breed Conference. Three Leadership Lessons From ThunderCat CEO Tom Deierlein, A Former U.S. Army Major “Clear communication, decisiveness and resilience are crucial characteristics of effective leaders…”

2018 XChange in San Antonio Thundercat CEO On Living Your Company’s Values

Here are some of my other articles: https://www.dhirubhai.net/today/author/tomdeierlein