The100: competition myopia, BeSci pitfalls and giant beetroots

Tube vs. Scooter

The Right Honourable Lord of Marketing, Mark Ritson, has been reminding us that our competition may not be our competition.

In fact, we shouldn’t be calling it competition at all.

Instead we should ask consumers about alternatives:

It’s a dangerous blind spot because focusing on self-generated competitors versus market-oriented alternatives means companies are often ill-prepared for the unexpected and unseen threats that sneak into the market from the rear and steal away sales.

So, when wanting to hear about the latest and greatest in the industry, where do you consider getting your information? [clears throat] 😉

Mere buzzwords

On equally punchy form is Tom Goodwin, as he discusses all that’s wrong with brands.

The culture of data has destroyed branding. We now get focussed on all the things we can measure and change quickly, and which can be ascribed to things we’ve done alone. Which happen to, without exception, all be metrics of absolutely no meaning.

You can come out from behind the sofa now, brand folk.

The incalculable science

Helen Edwards spoke at the Festival of Marketing about why marketers should rely less on behavioural science and pay greater attention to clues.

But that’s sacrilege!

Or is it?

it’s time for us to stop and drop the arrogance of trying to nudge people and be more alert and responsive to consumers who are nudging us […] When a consumer picks up a jumper, feels it and puts it down again, that’s a nudge to improve quality. When a consumer hides your pack, it’s a nudge about your packaging and even your brand meaning.

That smell of burning rubber? Just my brain.

Visual hegemony

Sight has become king of the senses in supermarkets.

While we may have once touched produce, smelt their aromas and perhaps even tasted samples, shopping with our eyes is now our main method of judging what we buy.

We often make assumptions about food quality based largely on how they look, rather than factors that affect taste and nutritional quality…

Has pack overtaken product as the key driver?

How do we manage frozen?

What about food waste?

And what does this mean for online?

If sight is *the* sense in the supermarket, I wonder how wide our eyes would get if we came across these giant vegetables?

Were-Rabbits of the world unite!

Pretty soon I’ll think I invented it

I was reminded of this recently: it’s not complicated, it’s just hard.

And I like it now just as much as I did in 2013. I just have to squint at the screen a bit more these days.

Lots of things are like that. They’re not complicated. They don’t require brilliant, innovative strategies, they’re just hard. They require more work and more effort than anyone might reasonably expect. The best managers create organisational room for that to happen.

The Jerry Seinfeld film that accompanies it on how he writes a joke is equally brilliant.

She’s at the fridge again

KD French has written and performed a Gospel song for the times. These approaches are genius – remember the Knight Rider theme played on 8 cellos?

Both top class.

Both better than anything the advertising world is churning out at present.

Not that I’m ever shy with my opinions on the ad industry 😉