Lingolook

Anyone following my transformation will know that I work for what Scott Karp describes as a linear company, with linear communication processes and linear results. The scope for change if we/they are to effectively embrace “the dynamic nature of online content” is truly biblical and the urgency to do so is, at best, frightening.

Is change possible? My largest client recently engaged McKinsey to carry out an in-depth analysis on the brand’s core and perceived values. The results, which I’m afraid I cannot publish here, were hardly surprising and oh-so-very predictable. At a consumer level, the company (and its product range) lacks character and personality. It doesn’t “own” any particular value proposition except for cheap and reliable which in my book is hardly a plus.

The most bizarre result of this analysis was that, according to McKinsey, no two IT vendors actually occupy the same value space in the minds of the public. Therefore none of us are actually competing… WTF?? Remind me of that each time someone buys from HP.

There is of course a positive side to this. It forces management to face reality and take action. In my client’s case they have decided to turn up the heat a little and move a little deeper into the premium brand segment but rather than approaching this shift with a differentiated and highly-tailored media mix with on- and off-line initiatives, the powers that be are afraid of challenging the status quo of their time-honoured processes and opinions and hence my ideological loss the other day.

When human resources puts pen to paper you get bureaucracy, no matter how you look at it. So why should HR be allowed to churn out brand values? It’s like legal department writing marketing material or product managers given free reign over trade unions. They can guide the thought processes, but surely it’s unwise to permit them to dictate terms.

If anyone trying to make a difference in marketing has seen the Layer Cake, I’m sure the final scene where Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon) explains to XXXX (Daniel Craig) the ways of the world is all too familiar. If anyone’s sat through a 10-hour analysis session and at the end asked themselves what the hell the point was, that cake seems to have no end.

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