Run with Foxes: Make Better Marketing Decisions

During the height of Covid, I was restricted to recording my radio show - The Persuaders - over Zoom calls. One of my first interviewees was Paul Dervan who had just published a book that's an excellent resources for marketers, based on a long career working with some fabulous marketing mentors, on some top brands. Below is a transcript of our conversation --which might have been aided by AI to synthesise the content!

Well, I'm now delighted to welcome to the show Paul Dervan, who is currently the CMO of the National Lottery in Ireland. Thanks for joining. How long had the idea been distilling in your mind, and what prompted you to take action, to speak?

Paul Dervan:?Yeah, you know what? I keep a diary, which I find interesting because I can go back and look at it. It's a digital one. When I go back and look at it, I find that the same thoughts have been going through my head for years and years. I actually realized that I had started the discussions of writing a book probably four or five years before I did. But the actual content of the book and all those things changed dramatically in those number of years. So there definitely has been a desire to put something down on paper. So it's a very interesting approach that you have in terms of taking a lot of evidence-based data around marketing but distilling it in a user-friendly way.

PD:?Yeah, like I had a desire to write something that was easy to read, and Conor Byrne ( That's What I Call Marketing podcast host) , as you know, had mentioned the book he had read. He'd been clear that people like to have books read, but they don't necessarily like to go to the task of reading them. I like to read, but a lot of people don't or such. So, I spent a lot of time trying to edit down and condense things into really short chapters and really short sentences, you know? And so I write it kind of the way that I normally write, which I made some active decisions to take all graphs out and to be as far removed as possible from a textbook as it might be.

AG:?And a lot of your approach is influenced by the fact that your primary research involved interviewing, I think up to 40 leading marketers, which obviously, when you're in the marketing game a long time, you have an advantage in that sense. You've built up some of this network as well, but that was very conscious as well?

PD:?Yeah, that was actually an idea that came from, from, I had worked with some of them before. So, I've done work with Peter Field before; he had been very helpful on a lot of stuff. And he read an earlier draft that I started to work on, and he had said, "Why don't you chase down some of the people that you admire an awful lot that you are interested in some of the stuff that they write about?" So that's what I did, and there was a handful I'd already interacted with over the years. And then the rest I just tracked down one by one.

AG:?Were it easy to get them to give up their time to you?

PD:?Yeah, they were, I mean, some of them are on call. Some of the interviews were in person. Some of them I did through interactions on email and back and forth. But generally, people were very generous with their time, and they were very open with their views on things. And I tried to make those best not to make it too laborious for them.

Alex Gibson:?Well, let's start with the obvious starting point, which is the title of the book, which is "Run with Foxes." You make a clear distinction between two broad personality types in terms of how people see the world or rather see decisions, which are the foxes and the hedgehogs. So just briefly describe what the difference is.

Paul Dervan:?Yeah, so the origins of the hedgehog and the fox, you know, they go back to Berlin and even before that, a guy who wrote in the 1950s. But there's a famous predictor in the US called Philip Tetlock, and he runs Super Forecasters, where basically he has a group of people who are continuously predicting future results. And he had done a little research to find out whether there were differences between these different types of people and how good they were.

The major difference he found is that people who were better at changing their mind, when the evidence started to suggest that they were wrong, were the ones who were more accurate at predicting outcomes. And he had dubbed them the foxes, while hedgehogs were people who tend to see things through one lens and would continuously explain the results of outcomes through this one lens. And I think his main point is that when we get hung up on ideologies and how we believe things work, it's very difficult for us to see how things are actually playing out, especially if you're vocal about that particular point of view. So I interviewed Philip, but I nicked that idea mostly because I felt in the marketing world there were a lot of parallels there, especially in predicting outcomes in human behavior. That's the running theme on that.

Alex Gibson:?It does strike me that there are elements of behavioral science and behavioral economics in there, like confirmation bias and the tendency to stick to a particular theory even when evidence suggests otherwise. Would you agree?

Paul Dervan:?Yes, absolutely. It's rampant in marketing. It's one of these traps that we have to work really hard to avoid.

Alex Gibson:?You were saying before we started recording this, that we were discussing the area of communications and advertising, which is often in the minds of people outside the sector synonymous with marketing. When we know it's not, but certainly that's one area where this bias is most glaring. That is, we often attribute the success of a campaign solely to advertising when other factors may be at play.

Paul Dervan:?Yeah, that's true. It's the schoolboy error of confusing correlation with causation. It happens all the time, and people often make decisions based on it.

Alex Gibson:?What extent do you think you would be critical of a lot of the research techniques and methodology? There's been a huge fixation in some circles with focus groups and qualitative studies where psychologists have been brought in to uncover deep motives.

Paul Dervan:?I'm generally a fan of research of all sorts. Some of the problems with research are that people don't spend enough time really understanding what they're trying to do. They end up with the wrong questions or even sample size errors. There's also the confirmation bias and other traps that we fall into. It takes time and effort to get good at measuring proper return on investment.

Alex Gibson:?You make the point in the book that this type of analysis is not as widely practiced as it should be. You mentioned that two-thirds of marketers can't present a compelling ROI case to their board typically.

Paul Dervan:?That's correct. Many marketers struggle with presenting a compelling ROI case, and there are various reasons for that, including a lack of understanding of how to do it properly.

Alex Gibson:?You discuss in the book the development of the "48" brand and some of the lessons learned from it. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Paul Dervan:?Sure, "48" is a mobile brand in Ireland. The key lesson we learned was the importance of data in making marketing decisions. We were able to analyze the data and make informed decisions, which led to the success of the brand.

Alex Gibson:?You talk about innovation and startups in the book and some of the lessons learned there. Do you think the same principles apply, or is it a completely different set of rules for startups and innovation?

Paul Dervan:?I think many of the principles of marketing apply to startups and innovation, but there are also some unique challenges and strategies that startups need to consider.

Alex Gibson:?One of the things that struck me from reading the book is that the marketing game is becoming more and more complex, yet at the same time, we're being required to make decisions more quickly. How do we reconcile that?

Paul Dervan:?It's a challenging balance to strike. The key is to use data and analytics to make informed decisions quickly rather than relying on intuition alone.

Alex Gibson:?You also discuss the importance of storytelling in marketing. Can you share your thoughts on that?

Paul Dervan:?Storytelling is a powerful tool in marketing because it helps create an emotional connection with the audience. It allows brands to communicate their values and personality in a way that resonates with consumers.

Alex Gibson:?As CMO of the National Lottery, that's a very emotive brand. I mean, that's something that's really synonymous with the Irish psyche. Would you say that storytelling is one of the key components in the marketing strategy for the National Lottery?

Paul Dervan:?Absolutely. The National Lottery is all about changing lives and making dreams come true. Storytelling is at the heart of how we communicate the impact of the National Lottery on individuals and communities.

Alex Gibson:?I think one of the other things that came through the book was the need for marketers to keep learning and to stay curious. I think one of the phrases in the book was, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." How do you stay curious in your job?

Paul Dervan:?I stay curious by constantly seeking out new information and insights, and by learning from others both inside and outside the marketing industry.

Alex Gibson:?You talk a lot about learning from others and learning from mistakes as well. Is there one mistake in your career that stands out as a particularly valuable lesson?

Paul Dervan:?There have been many mistakes along the way, but one valuable lesson I've learned is the importance of taking calculated risks and being willing to adapt and change course when necessary.

Alex Gibson:?Well, I think the book is a fantastic contribution to the marketing literature, and I can only commend you on it. It's a short read, but it's a powerful read, and I think it's packed with information. I'd recommend it to anybody who's in the marketing space. Thanks for joining us, Paul.

Paul Dervan:?Thank you, Alex. It's been a pleasure.

(Note: This is a synthesized text based on the audio clip you provided, and it may not be a perfect transcription. It has been edited for clarity and readability.)