S.W.A.T. Teams & Oreos: Masters of Agility

This is the final post in a series about building Anticipatory Brands. Click to read the introduction, Post 1 and Post 2.

“ In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”   ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

I’m not comparing the marketing field to a battlefield (though it occasionally feels that way), but anyone in business knows that no matter how detailed and comprehensive plans are, once we get rolling, there almost certainly will be surprises. This is why we need Anticipatory Brands.

These brands develop Precision Foresights? for sound strategy, and they ready an arsenal of dynamic tactics to achieve the goals, but there’s one more essential element to building an Anticipatory Brand: being poised to react and adapt to any hurdles or opportunities.

The Third Pillar of Anticipatory Brands: Agile Execution

Success in this connected age means ensuring your team executes in an organized, but flexible, fashion. At its core, agile execution requires expecting the unexpected—but more importantly, it requires being prepared when the unexpected arrives.

In the modern social media-influenced market, trends and memes rocket in and out of style, and brands that can’t keep pace with the constantly changing times are quickly left in the dust. How do we keep up?

Nimble brands can set dozens of small ideas and initiatives into action instead of just a few few long lead, big ideas. Then they quickly evaluate, assess, optimize, and supplement their strategy. This is “agile marketing,” an approach that takes a page out of the Agile Development method that software engineers and developers have been using for years.

The brands that thrive are those that pounce fastest on potential opportunities. Back in 2013, after the halftime show of Super Bowl XLXII, the entire stadium went dark. During one of the most awkward hours in the history of live television, Oreo capitalized on the blackout by creating a new ad and hashtag campaign that went live only 10 minutes after the lights went out.

#DunkintheDark not only won the Internet that night, but was lauded as one of the best campaigns of the year. What you may not know is that it also is credited for the strong results from Oreo’s originally planned “Cookie or Creme” Super Bowl TV ad, showing how agile execution can have a halo effect on other marketing efforts.

How did Oreo respond so fast—get creative approval, legal and brand review, exec signoff, etc.? They didn’t just get lucky. They were organized for agile execution long before gametime.  They planned ahead and assembled a Super Bowl party that included the entire marketing team. Fingers were poised on every social platform, just waiting for something memorable to happen. When that key moment came, all the right minds were together and ready to make magic happen.

#DunkintheDark followed another agile campaign called “Daily Twist” –100 days of real-time posting of Oreo’s responses to what was happening in the news, such as Elvis' birthday and the Mars Rover landing.

Oreo's mastery of agile execution requires strategy and foresight, but it also requires a team of people who have practiced and prepared to quickly evaluate, assess, optimize, and supplement their strategy whenever the situation changes.

Agile Marketing vs. Conventional Approaches

So what are the principles of agile marketing?

Agile marketing emphasizes speed, frequent testing, and iteration. This contrasts with conventional marketing wisdom, which favors big ideas and big splashes, and provides few opportunities to evaluate, measure, react quickly to the market or learn along the way. While agile marketing may seem daunting, its data-driven, test & learn focus shows it's not random reactivity, but organized proactivity. And all of us can do it, too. By anticipating and organizing for agility, our teams can execute more efficiently, learn faster, and engage more effectively under uncertain circumstances.

According to a Forbes survey of CMOs, achieving agility requires organizations to be data-driven, customer-focused, constantly prioritizing, and quick decision-makers. Only 26% of CMOs consider their orgs very agile, so there’s a lot of upside and a chance to gain competitive advantage.

 Tips for Effective Agile Execution

Agile execution isn’t just about being able to respond quickly to events and the overall market. It must:

1. Focus on the customer. Aligning teams around customer “moments of truth” is a good place to start. Who are the customer-facing contacts for each moment? What are the triggers? Who is responsible for each experience? How do they get customer feedback to close the loop?
2. Tie into business goals and processes. Marketing exists to create value and brands exist to deliver on a promise to customers. How do your systems support that? How do you measure progress? Who is accountable?
3. Ensure flexibility. The heart of agility is being adaptable and responsive at the right time. We need to:
• Think like a S.W.A.T. team: S.W.A.T. teams are never quite sure what they’ll be walking into. When bullets are flying and things go awry, they rely on muscle memory, honed from years of training for a variety of situations. Success requires each teammate to know their defined roles and responsibilities, principles of engagement rather than strict, specific procedures, and lots of scenario practice. How can you apply this to your team?
• Break it down: In Agile Development, engineers typically execute two-week “sprints” that are defined by smaller experiments and rapid iteration. Can your team function the same way?  
4. Continually (re)evaluate. When a marketing “sprint” is over, measure and evaluate the results and use that information to fine-tune your strategy. This optimization process is critical to agile execution.
5. Center on the data. The first four items in this list rely on data for segmenting, planning, forecasting, decision-making, tracking, and optimizing. How quickly does your organization get the data it needs to make smart decisions? Are you able to anticipate what to do next?

Put it into Action

So, now you have all the key elements of building an Anticipatory Brand: Precision Foresights, dynamic tactics, and agile execution. Make it muscle memory: here are three things you can do to jumpstart agility, starting today:

1. Plan small initiatives. No plan is perfect -- once you’re in the thick of things, it may even feel as useless as Eisenhower’s did to him. But follow Ike’s example and put the work in; plans are guideposts for the team.
2. Build your S.W.A.T. mentality: develop your org to be ready to field whatever challenges and opportunities arise by practicing how you’re going to engage, and not just what you’re going to do.
3. Continually experiment, measure, iterate and hone your skills.

You’re on your way to becoming an Anticipatory Brand!

Sheryl Tullis, a former Army officer and West Point graduate, transitioned to a career in marketing because the language was familiar (air cover, campaigns, targeting, and tactics) but the shoes are nicer.                                         @sheryltu