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3 Obsessions That Make Every Marketer Better

This article is more than 2 years old.

At the Geneva-based global marketing agency MCI, chief strategy officer Oscar Cerezales has been thinking about obsessions. I recently asked him to show us how the heated emotions of obsession can coexist with the cold calculations of marketing strategy.

Paul Talbot: How can the benefits of embracing change best be balanced with the disciplines and the consistent behaviors required to execute marketing strategy?

Oscar Cerezales: The best marketers are obsessed. Obsessed with ‘this is not our first rodeo.’

The best marketers know how to proactively transform and drive marketing strategy to suit whatever marketplace or economic situation, including a ‘black swan’ event, characterized by their extreme rarity and severe consequences, such as 9/11, the recent financial crisis and the current pandemic. The best marketers are…

  • Obsessed with the ‘be water my friend’ mantra. The best marketers embrace volatility and uncertainties while considering current and future, obvious and subtle, audiences’ needs.
  • Obsessed with ‘multiple futures.’ The best marketeers define plausible future scenarios and their potential impacts on customer business goals.
  • Obsessed with ‘what’s not going to change.’ The best marketers understand audiences. Audiences want to be entertained and delighted. Audiences need an engaging dialogue with organizations. Audiences need to interact, even to the point of being extremely passionate about what the brand stands for.

Talbot: The marketing strategies employed for events… how should their elements be revamped as we take another turn, this time from virtual back to in-person events?

Cerezales: No doubt, the tactician mindset.

High performing organizations think in terms of strategy first, how to engage and activate audiences and tactics only afterwards, format: virtual vs in-person. Not the other way around.

As quantitative and qualitative research shows, events are the best tool in the marketing arsenal as they make your brand or organization much more accessible to your target audience.

Why? Simply put, touch points.  

Events bring to life brand messages via multiple touch points, more than other channels, that are not only highly experiential but also very customizable. Hence, an effective multi or omni channel strategy will incorporate, among other marketing strategies, a number of well-designed virtual events with a focus on volume and high scalability and in-person events with a focus on quality and experience.

Talbot: When marketers look to create connections, what should they do to make these connections substantive and enduring rather than superficial and fleeting?

Cerezales: Spot on. Most of the connections are superficial. Why? Because two elements, in most of the cases, are undervalued.

First, the UX and engagement combo. A good number of marketers put technology on top of user experience. The reality is, there is no correlation between enduring audience connections and technology used. But there is when the activation has been designed and anchored around strong engagement methodologies using behavioral science.

Second, lack of data strategy. If you want substantive connections, you need to collect information from each touchpoint.

However, you must stop using data and start using insights. Each touchpoint will provide raw data, which is useless. A process where raw data is transformed into information, then knowledge and then insights is a must.

Talbot: How should the value of these connections be measured?

Cerezales: My advice would be to stop thinking in ROI, return on investment, and start thinking in ROE, return on engagement. While ROI works well for some channels, such as email marketing or social media, the activation and study are complex in others, such as events.

A well-designed ROE system should collect information from your virtual, in-person and hybrid activations in parallel, not in isolation, offering information on three dimensions.

1.    Involvement… reach, attention and attraction.

2.    Engagement… cognition, affection and relation.

3.    Impact… interest, preference and advocacy.

Talbot: Any other insights on the marketing strategy you’d like to share?

Cerezales: Sir Alex Fergusson said once, ‘Give me ten pieces of wood and Zinedine Zidane, and I’ll win the Champions League.’

I believe marketing strategy is not about thinking (easy) but doing (complex). I believe execution is the strategy. And for this, you need the scarcest resource of any organization: skilled talents.

And if you want to attract the best talents, you need to develop the right brand. You need substance, a position, an opinion, an angle.

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