Gillette's double-edge razor

No one can forget the scandalous ad by Pepsi released in 2017 featuring Kendall Jenner, a rally of (calm) protesters and the all-powerful, can of soda. According to NBC news, Pepsi was accused of appropriating a Black Lives Matter movement following "police shootings of African Americans." The ad's controversial nature encouraged Pepsi to pull the ad and they've since refrained from releasing similar content. Understandably, the ad by Pepsi raised questions in light of its timing, message and context.

In 2018, Nike also released a controversial ad featuring Colin Kaepernick regurgitating the renown Nike slogan "“Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything. Just Do It." Admittedly, this was shortly after Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem in protest to policy brutality. Although the ad spiked debate, it felt genuine to the millions of Nike followers and consequently brought the company $6 billion in sales. 

A few days ago, Gillette too launched a controversial ad encouraging men to take action against sexual assault and endorsing messages from the me-too movement. Many progressives commended the company for its liberal take, however, many more consumers condemned the ad and threatened to boycott the razor company, according to BusinessInsider. Many posted pictures throwing their razors in the toilet and others proclaimed their switch to alternative brands. The question then becomes, why? 

According to Intelligencer, Gillette tried to profit off a politically tumultuous time by accusing men of systematic corrupt behaviour. Regardless of the truth behind this claim, the company's downfall lies in their replacement of one word. Specifically, "Gillette... inverts the company’s slogan, changing “Gillette: The Best a Man Can Get” to “The Best a Man Can Be.”...Instead of offering the man something, the slogan now asks him to do something." Intelligencer examines the implications of this change and concludes that in marketing, the brand "works for its customers, not the other way around." In essence, Gillette introduces a social-change message by accusing men of faulty behaviour and by telling them the 'correct' way of acting. 

What are the implications of Gillette's ad in a digital world? Millions of consumers, potential consumers, and non-consumers are exposed to the ad, the company's name is trending for days, and the company gains news coverage and national popularity. But, this popularity is negative. Negative popularity can destroy a brand at a faster pace than a positive popularity can inspire a purchase. So, should companies gamble their future by introducing social-change messages in their campaigns? If it's well received, it can be financially rewarding like Nike's gains. If it's bad, well just look at Gillette. I guess if it's not well received, you can also just pull the ad like Pepsi, apologize and lay low for while. 

This goes to show that in business, espousing some moral authority can be the end of you. Hopefully Gillette does recover, though. I personally like their razors...

The Enterprise Software Powering Digital Marketing

In 2012 Gartner released an oft-repeated prediction that CMO's will spend more on IT than CIOs by 2017. It is a well-founded prediction, as growth in digital marketing has ramped up dramatically over the past few years. Over the next few years, double-digit CAGR in spending on marketing technology is predicted, supporting this assertion.

With all of the activity in digital marketing today, it is crazy to think that Omniture was the only marketing technology company valued over $1 billion just  a few years ago. While no marketing-specific "decacorns" have emerged, several companies have racked up serious valuations in private markets, acquisitions, and IPO's, attesting to the growth in this area.

Marketing automation has led the way, with companies like ExactTarget and Pardot (B2C and B2B marketing automation companies, respectively) being acquired by Salesforce and Responsys and Eloqua being bought by Oracle. I have personal experience selling ExactTarget and Pardot through my role at Salesforce, and experience using Eloqua in my previous roles at Dell and Quest Software.

These technologies make connecting sales and marketing so easy that any company not using these tools (or something similar) is putting itself at a gross disadvantage. For example, using either Pardot or Eloqua, a company can automatically capture inquiries from its website, assign a lead score based on the user's activity (and past history with the company), and route to the appropriate sales rep based on location, size, industry, etc. These tools can also handle things like automated drip email campaigns, freeing up marketing staff from manually managing tasks like this.

Outside of the ego-fueled battle for supremacy in the marketing and CRM technology market between Oracle and Salesforce, many other technologies of great potential are emerging. Newcomers are building businesses on predictive analytics, 1:1 marketing (personalization), and optimizing tracking/targeting.

There is huge potential to leverage these technologies to transform things like customer acquisition cost, customer satisfaction, loyalty, and other key marketing metrics. If I could give any piece of advice of to marketers today, it would be to spend a little less time reading AdWeek and a little more time reading TechCrunch. There's a good chance that tomorrow's headline about a marketing startup landing a Series A could have a tremendous impact on their job in the coming years.



Source: http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/03/theres-a-10-billion-opportunity-as-marketing-hits-the-big-time/