As mentioned in my earlier post, today I had an opportunity to meet a knight - Sir Martin Sorrell, an English businessman, currently the chief executive officer of WPP Group. As numbers always attracts me and with a number of over US$175 million net worth of Sir Martin Sorrel, this was one event that I couldn’t afford to miss. As mentioned earlier, I went there with an open mind and an opportunity to learn something.
It was a nice event that I manage to become a part of all due credit to my partner -141 Sercon. I did have a couple of minute’s discussion with the Knight. However I have to admit that it was certainly an engaging one, while I had an opportunity to chat with so many other like minded people. The speech by the Knight was certainly nice, and very much too the point, however the crux of it for me was what he identified three elements that he envisiones (and I echo his thoughts) would move the marketing business forward. They are – New Market, New Medium, and Ability to analyze your customers.
He admitted the fact that clients all across have pulled back the investments in marketing. And of course that trickles down from the phenomenal nightmarish losses that of the clients have made in past year or so. An un-disclosed example of a company was as bad as going from $ 6 Million monthly revenue to $ 1.5 Millions monthly. Of course this stands true if I am recalling, and getting my numbers right.
However coming back to what I note worthy felt was the three elements. Firstly without doubt that it’s the age of “super growing” economy or in some other words the emerging markets. The biggest and the strongest proof could be the stock market. Needless to say the kind of investments what India and similar countries are attracting vs. the developed ones. Mention of Pakistan was little surprising factor for me in the list, but I truly believe that there must have been some analysis done on that. What??? I don’t know.
Secondly New Medium. As we are moving toward the highly depend digital economy, in every sense of its true word, hence a move toward this space has gone beyond levels of criticality. It simply mandatory ( A Big Full Stop). We are at a stage that we need to put digital marketing into no matter which chapter of our marketing plan, be it right after the index page or just before conclusion page. It simply has to be there with a considerable amount of understanding, objective, further medium, goals, tactics and so on.
Thirdly and most important where we all or rather majority of marketers have done “a not so decent” job (being politically correct) is the ability to analyze our base. “Internet is the most measurable medium in the history of marketing. Now all that’s left to figure out is how to measure it”. Hence it always forces me to think that most marketers tend to foray into the digital domain attracted by the charm of its ability to analyze, but then stop. How many of us “effectively” do it? Or let me ask how many of us actually do it or may be further how many actually attempt to do it? Based on my experience with working with various companies I can assure you the results are disastrous.
In the age of globalization, globalization is your biggest challenge. Hence it’s imperative for us not only to spend resources, but have clear vision to understand our customer base. Analyze our current statistics and somewhat put our Nostradamus hat to vision or envision the future. Mathematics changed the face of the earth, similarly doing our analysis would change at least some face of us (marketers).
Thank You Sir Martin Sorrell and 141 Sercon. It was a knowledgeable evening well spent.
Have a good day.
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