Pints are better than pots and jugs of beer are even better. It's a handy metaphor in the pub, but it's also a handy way for marketers to think about where their attention should go, according to Cotton On global head of marketing and e-commerce Col Kennedy.
Speaking yesterday at the CMO Disrupt conference in Sydney, Kennedy urged marketers to make sure that everything they do feeds back into the purpose of their brand; the 'why' and focus on the big things – not get distracted by the little things.
Kennedy, a former Sony Playstation and Disney marketer, joined Australian retail chain Cotton On last year after a stint at Target, said that as long as the 'why' remains true in all marketing and brand activity, it will be successful.
He cited Apple as an example of a brand that has dominated the market even though its product isn't the most technically advanced, but creating a set of values that people buy into.
Playstation too, he said, grew its dominance of the gaming console market, not because it was the most technically advanced, but because it was unswervingly dedicated to its purpose: making gaming cool.
Ken Kutaragi, head designer for Playstation at Sony, wanted “to think and deliver something different,” said Kennedy.
“He wanted to make gaming cool – that was our 'why' and it filtered through to everything we did whether it was marketing and how we communicated and did disruptive things ... it's really important to think about the 'why'. As marketers our company is to delivery, and work out what your 'why' is. That's how you'll differentiate, and stand out and deliver growth over the medium term, and that’s fundamentally important in the long term,” said Kennedy.
“Lots of people go off and focus on lots of stuff and it's very easy to do that because it feels like you’ve got momentum and you're doing stuff, but actually, you're not really going to deliver the big shift that you need if you're doing lots of pots. You need to deliver a lot more pints, and eventually get to jugs.”
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