Communicating in Context - How marketing has changed since the pandemic and what we can do about it.

A one-hour in-person presentation to a customer in 2019 was changed to a 30-minute webinar in 2020, and in 2021, a 10-min online presentation was all stakeholders would tolerate.

This extreme focus on execution, and the laser-sharp adherence to a carefully constructed strategy, was happening long before 2020, due to the domination of data-driven tactics in the marketplace.?

As a marketing leader, I too embrace a data-driven approach, but I also see the need for balance between understanding a customer's state of mind and the metrics of attention behind it.?

This is what we’ve lost.?

I come from a design background, and good design, as we all know, is a mixture of science and art.?

Good design must reflect the brand’s overarching philosophy. Why? Because that is what inspires. That is what speaks to our consumers. Philosophy comes before strategy and before the execution plan; philosophy is the ultimate ‘why are we really doing this?’

Even when a marketing team loses track of the brand’s overarching philosophy, marketing from solely a data perspective can still be effective in the short term.

Views are views.

Clicks are clicks.?

But if there is no real philosophy behind all that execution that inspires, over the long term, those marketing efforts will fall flat. Consumers will burn out. The marketers themselves will burn out.?

I know we are living through interesting times, and the attention brought on by savvy marketing tactics two years ago won’t work today. Yet we must be careful that, in our haste to hit our numbers and keep our budgets stable, we remember to embrace that which makes our brand special, to articulate what kind of a company we want to be, and to communicate in such a way as to inspire others to embrace the same philosophy.

An articulated and focused brand philosophy will elevate the results of the strategy and execution plan from “we met our numbers” to jaw-dropping inspirational stories that people will talk about for years. This is the essence of good marketing.?

Fellow marketers, how important would you say brand philosophy is to the success of your marketing?