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Each week I share something to read, someone to follow and a marketing thought or challenge.
Let’s do it:
To Read
1.
🐭
Finished a book this week. Disney has always fascinated me as a company.
They’ve created a sense of magic around everything they do - it’s a great case study in branding.
But I never knew the story, and how close they were to becoming mediocre.
CEO, Robert Iger, shares some fascinating insights into what it’s like deciding which movies to produce, what content to acquire and how to innovate in the face of digital disruption.
My favourite stories in the book were about Steve Jobs and his wonderfully pragmatic approach to business (and life).
Read: The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger
2.
🙍
“Marketing now has a much larger focus on deeply understanding the customer and being that partner to sales, product and customer success to ensure the voice of the customer is infused in all go-to-market and product strategies.”
-Allison Macleod, EVP Global Marketing at Flywire
Read: The Future of Marketing
3.
🔍
Marketing is more than the ads you see.
It’s the decisions you make.
It’s who you choose to follow.
It’s how a shopping mall makes you feel.
It’s your jeans.
It’s the beer you’ll never buy.
It’s the stories we tell ourselves.
It’s impossible to avoid it.
So let’s at least make it great.
To Follow
Katelyn Bourgoin has founded 4 companies including a peer-to-peer mentoring platform for women entrepreneurs, a strategic branding agency that specialises in guerrilla marketing and a restaurant consulting firm.
Katelyn is a big advocate for customer conversations and ethical marketing.
TLDR: follow Katelyn.
Challenge
So we know marketing exists whether we like it or not, and that we can’t avoid it.
We know every business does Marketing. It’s impossible to live in a bubble.
So this week, ask yourself- “who’s marketing to me?”
Why did they choose me?
Why am I being targeted on this platfiorm? (bus shelter, instagram, tv)
Why did they choose that message?
What do they want me to do?
How does it make me feel?
Asking these critical questions as you surf the web, walk around town or make decisions in the supermarket will make you a better marketer.
Nothing happens by accident.
The first step is seeing the world for what it is.
The second step is using those insights to improve your own career or business.
This is marketing.
Talk soon,
Sean Blake