Creation > Replication

95% of the work of great marketing is invisible. Because of this many people outside marketing look at the output of a marketing team and think it’s easy to do, or that they can replicate it. Beyond that, they think that if they replicate a competitors work, that they too will get great results. It works for them, it should work for us! Right?

The 95% of work that is invisible is obviously a heap of work. It’s not just the behind the scenes work making stuff happen, before even beginning that process, the job is to work out WHAT to do.

We all have limited time, limited resources, and a remit to have demonstrable commercial impact. In this context, figuring out WHAT to do is WAY more important than HOW to do it. Admittedly, nothing will happen without actual execution, but if you’re rushing to execution without really mapping out your options for execution and their likelihood for success, you’ll more than likely fall into the trap of executing something like your competitors, and miss the REALLY low hanging fruit that can really change the game.

Ideally, what we are looking for is the really simple and easy to execute actions that can 10x your output, or 10x your impact, without 10x-ing your effort.

Why is copying your competitor the wrong thing to do?

There are 3 main reasons why copying your competitors’ playbook isn't great:

1. One of the goals of marketing is to be distinctive from your competitors. This helps customers chose your brand over your competitors brand because you stand out. Copying the playbook won’t help you establish that distinctiveness.
2. Each brand is different. The heritage, the products, the philosophy, the team, the culture, the business maturity, the production capabilities, the distribution, the ingredients, the partners, etc etc. Because of these differences, the barriers you face in trying to grow your business are unique to you. As are your competitive advantages. Simply copying a competitors’ approach, without exploring those barriers and those advantages in order to deeply understand them means you’ll more than likely choose an approach designed to address a different problem. Beyond that, without developing that deep understanding, the work you execute is likely to at best be a poorly executed facsimile, or at worst ignored by your audience.
3. The real low hanging fruit, the stuff that is simple to execute and highly impactful, is likely to be where your competitor isn’t looking. So you just won’t find that by focussing solely on them.

Ok. But can you learn from your competitors?

Yes. Absolutely. But try and reduce what they do down to first principles before plotting your course of action. What are they trying to achieve? What aspect of their target audiences’ behaviour or need-set are they trying to connect with? What lessons can you draw from that? Use those learnings, but try to find uncontested spaces across your competitive set that truly allow your brand to shine. Swim in the blue ocean, avoid the red ocean.

Anything else?

• Often the most powerful and effective route is to draw inspiration from different categories. Over the years I’ve seen retail techniques applied to B2B businesses to great effect. I’ve seen FMCG techniques applied to the non-profit space and set global records. I’ve seen auto companies learn from airline lounges. All of these solutions were far simpler and cheaper to execute than the category norms and had hugely outsized impacts because they were genuinely different.
• Sometimes the most effective route is to look internally. Sometimes internal barriers to high-quality and fast decision-making, low levels of team competency, are the primary barriers to progress. Resolving those barriers quickly and decisively can start to deliver benefits in days or weeks and either mean you can shrink the team (lower costs) or increase the output (my preferred). Following this route, I’ve seen operating model and team structure changes double the productive output of a marketing team. 2x the impact for the same cost. You can’t get that from your competitor.