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PAST EVENT: 2nd Annual Successfully Implementing Six Sigma in Sales & Marketing Conference
Hyatt's flagship property, Hyatt Regency Chicago (September 7-9, 2005) |
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| 22/07/05 |
ANA MA Forum: Six Sigma Approach
When presenting right after coming back from lunch at a business conference, speakers sometimes have to deal with something worse than the high school senioritis-like feeling people have right before lunch - and that's food coma. Thankfully for those of us attending the ANA's Marketing Accountability Forum (previously discussed here), post lunch speaker Kevin Clancy, Ph.D, who is the chairman & CEO of Copernicus Marketing Consulting, went straight at us to get our attention. Showing a slide with a glasses-wearing man looking sad, he stated that this man "was an MBA. Murderer of Brand Assets." Of course, that garnered a pretty good laugh from the room, but he appeared to be saying that just because someone has an MBA doesn't mean that they know what's good for every situation.
Clancy kept the audience on the ball by introducing each segment of his presentation, "A Six Sigma Approach to Making Marketing More Accountable," by introducing quotes and quick hit facts about what is wrong with the world of marketing. Sure, it's depressing to see such things at the beginning of a slide show, but it all had a point. Statements like the one from June 2005's Harvard Business Review, which reported that according to the Marketing Science Institute, a 100 increase in marketing expenditures returns only a 1 increase in sales. Of course, I'd say we can all argue with such a statement, but let's just give it a whirl - if that's the case, then is the marketing currently being done full of wastefulness? Kevin Clancy thinks so, and believes that a push towards Six Sigma actions when doing marketing plans would be beneficial to everyone.
If we're to follow this train of thought, then where's the problem? Clancy says it's both the targeting of those who a company should be marketing towards and reaching out to, along with the positioning of a brand in front of the market as a whole.
"Dumb targeting and no positioning yield Zero Sigma results."
Now we're not going to get into Six Sigma concepts here as a whole (there are books you can read, trust me), but if you think about the statement, you'll have the same reaction that most of this room did - a quick nod.
Clancy moves on to suggest something that was similar to a statement made earlier in the day - that the advertiser is somewhat held hostage by its agency at some point - by saying that marketers should ask for more than one solid idea for positioning statements and concepts, and not just go with the first idea that strikes anyone as solid.
A lot of statements made during this presentation definitely rang true to me through my experience as a marketer. People don't look at a product or service and say "let's figure out what all the demographic information and market segmentations that this would be appropriate for" - most people just say, "I think this would sell well with 20-35 year old men on the East Coast," when unfortunately it's not always that easy. Perhaps it's partially right, but not the smartest decision. Targeting, while a dirty word to some who don't appreciate advertising and marketing, is the best thing in the world if done well. Unfortunately, it's not always done so perfectly.
AdJab.com |
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