My SxSW talk - NYT "Page One" meeting

We hosted our "Brand Futures" dinner at the Josephine House in Austin. Cute spot, an intimate gathering of marketers where I was honored to share the stage w/ Eric Toda of AirBnB.

Eric started his talk on AirBnB's response to recent US travel restrictions, how their CEO is leading the conversation and the emotional story behind AirBnB's WE ACCEPT 2017 Super Bowl Ad. A fascinating talk that emoted a deep reaction in me and much of the audience. I told Eric the next day that I started to well-up as his brand's contribution is much appreciated and comes at an important time. Such a great story.

But how do I follow that?

It was my turn... I started w/ an observation and then followed with a story.

My observation is that #SxSW is less about panels and parties and more about the connections we make. Special nights like this dinner where we put down our devices, eat, drink and establish deeper relationships. The humans behind the brands and the business. Finding old acquaintances or meeting new colleagues.

On the plane down to Texas, I reminded myself on just how many wonderful relationships started at SxSW. Important personal and professional contacts that have lasted. Deeper discussions on new technologies, societal impacts, business ideas and trends.

My Story @ The New York Times

Several years ago, I sat in on the New York Times “Page One” meeting the editor holds twice a day. Section editors gathered, the Foreign Desk called in from Paris and laptops opened as I sat against the back wall of a round room. A fly on a wall at the center of the media universe.

Round-robin style, the editor called on his reports. He reacted to work, asked questions and made suggestions. He brought together ideas, he connected dots and orchestrated the New York Times right in front of me.

It was routine and rigor in a chaotic world. I saw behaviors and a process that I could leverage in my own work as a marketer, learnings that I brought back to my team where I ran Global Social Marketing at Intel.

But here’s the problem… I work in Marketing. A profession that has no uniform process or method. Each brand or agency, each team or channel has their own processes, tools and technology. Its messy, not always creative and leads to burnout.

Marketing’s evolution is unparalleled. Once viewed as a soft refuge for creatives, marketing has become a complex matrix of journeys, channels and data-science. It can make or break a business, especially in our digital world.

Marketing is at an “Inflection Point” as my old boss Andy Grove would have said. The old way simply doesn’t work anymore, as the McDonald’s CMO Deborah Wahl proclaimed during Advertising Week in New York.

“Small changes don’t work, old approaches can’t work. We need a new way."

Marketing's Systemic Problem

I shared that 3 things are abundantly clear to me:

1. The marketing process is broken.
2. It’s getting more complex.
3. Behavioral changes are required.

No one working on the brand has the complete picture, no process is wholly aligned and few brand teams share the same methodologies. Your web team is disconnected from your email team who in turn has limited visibility into social, retail, media, etc. Strategies fall apart and your experience suffers.

Meanwhile, complexity is increasing. Screens are multiplying, audiences span across a fragmented landscape, brand touch-points have reached the Internet of Things. Many brands are still centered around campaigns in a 24/7 world where media sophistication wins political office.

Applying the NYT behavior

As far as the New York Times Page One meeting – I did bring those behaviors back to Intel. We did mimic their model. Here’s our weekly routine:

• Monday AM – 2-Hour “War Room” – A standing all-team and all-agency mandatory meeting. We review the work looking two weeks out on the calendar. Each member reports out their work as they are called on. We edit, collaborate, ask questions and make changes in real-time. To be effective we all need to be looking at the same thing. We needed one source of truth. We worked directly in Opal in our case.
• Tuesday/Wednesday “Orchestration” – Each member edits and make adjustments to their work as recommended in the War Room. We finalize the calendar and prep for Thursday’s Exec Review. We make sure that our work looks beautiful and reflective of reality. We are all contributing to the same body of work in Opal – our one source of truth.
• Thursday – 30 Min – "Exec Review" – Our VP walkthrough. They can see the timing, the relationships between programing, the exact creative. It’s basically the brand as the consumer will see it. We aim to get buy-off and approval when necessary.
• Friday PM – Work Due EOD – All work due in Opal for next Monday’s War Room. Work not submitted is either pushed out or cancelled entirely. If it’s not in Opal, it’s not real.

This rigor and routine set clear expectations, attained flow and aligned everyone on our strategic mission. The muscle-memory eased change-management and execs were aware of key programs. It worked.

It demonstrates that adopting methodologies from other disciplines, like journalism, is a worthwhile and effective tactic. Disciplines like software development, political campaigns, even power-generation offer methodologies useful to the brand marketer.

----------------------------------------

Updated from earlier blog post on Opal's blog - A Method for Marketing Madness