Brand Marketers, I come in Peace

DEEP DIVE:

Here at Go-to-Millions, we know how important both functions are to any successful Go-to-Market planning. 

WE LOVE THE BRANDS WE LOVE WITH ALL OUR HEART.

Those brands are built with the help of insanely talented brand marketers who build, protect, and design experiences that make customers LOYAL and HAPPY.  

Notice that I said built with the help of brand marketers. 

Brands are built with Brand marketing teams, but they aren’t built by brand marketing teams alone. 

The brands you KNOW, LOVE, and CARE about were also built with the help of skilled Growth marketers who use data, experimentation, and MEASURABLE TACTICS to drive sales. 

Both teams are essential. Both teams need to be empowered. 

Both teams can approve and decide on many, many parts of marketing strategy without battling (same team, same org, same dream — right??)

☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️​​☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️​​☮️

But, who’s in CHARGE of digital creative? 

Let’s back up, because it’s pretty complicated.

You see, dear reader, creative differences within orgs are a real doozy. 

Feelings can get hurt, and it can be insulting to have your ideas rejected. 

It can be embarrassing to have your briefs rejected. 

It’s painful to be in a meeting and to have an idea you’re passionate about shot down.

It hurts the ego (I personally get sad when an idea/tactic/solution I believe in isn’t championed- I’m HUMAN and sensitive and yes I have CRIED about this and likely WILL CRY about this again in the future). 

It stings.

You know what stings more? 

Working at a flailing business that can’t get to profitability and abundance. 

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Having STOCK that is WORTHLESS. 

Wasting years of your life working on something that doesn’t reach its highest potential. 

That hurts like a bitch. 

If you won’t listen to me, listen to our forefather, David Ogilvy.

Ogilvy’s take on advertising was very straightforward:

“I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.

When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’

I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”

In my opinion, the Growth team should be must be the decision-maker (aka the tie-breaking vote) on all of the following (without exception). 

: Ad creative

: Ad copy

: Landing pages

: Listicles

: Merch / promotional product pipeline

: Launch strategy

: Email

: SMS

: EVERY.SINGLE.THING.ON.THE.WEBSITE.

That delineation is clean. It’s clear. It’s productive. 

One more from my celebrity crush of yesteryear, David Ogilvy. 

“I’m not saying that charming, witty and warm copy won’t sell.

I’m just saying that I’ve seen thousands of charming, witty campaigns that didn’t.

Let’s say you are a manufacturer. Your advertising isn’t working and your sales are going down. And everything depends on it. Your future depends on it, your family’s future depends on it, other people’s families depend on it. And you walk in this office and talk to me, and you sit in that chair.

Now, what do you want out of me? Fine writing? Do you want masterpieces? Do you want glowing things that can be framed by copywriters?

Or do you want to see the goddamned sales curve stop moving down and start moving up?”

The growth team is responsible for, well, growth. 

Follow Jeromy Sonne on Twitter (I’m his #1 fan and this meme is iconic). 

Respectfully, no matter how smart you are – no matter how much experience you have – and no matter “how great your taste is”, 

YOU.DO.NOT.KNOW.HOW.CREATIVE.WILL.PERFORM.UNTIL.YOU.TEST.IT.

Sure, there is a very important balance to strike here:  

Growth teams need to respect brand guidelines. 

Brand teams are defending the integrity of the brand – that 100% matters and is essential.

But, with all do, brand teams need to respect that without growth (and without real customers who are using their own hard-earned resources to buy your product/service/experience) there is no brand. 

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Follow RGA on Twitter

Marketing is an ecosystem, baby! 

It’s living, breathing, ever-evolving. 

As Darwin said, “Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive.”

Design guidelines can be “set” ahead of launch.

Brand Bibles and Branding Decks are hugely helpful to growth marketers – they help us to stay in the lines. They help keep things cohesive.

Cohesive = consistent

Customers love consistency! It builds trust. And, if they trust you, they’ll shop. 

However, it is called Go-to-Market strategy. Not Going-to-Market.

It’s happening NOW. Overzealous brand marketers do need to meet their growth teams/ agencies/ consultants in the middle. 

It’s time to bring our brand design guidelines out of the PowerPoint and into the real world. 

We have to test against how we planned to do things, and therefore learn how we SHOULD do things. 

We have to break the rules. 

NOT IN A CRAZY, goes against our values as a brand or our visual identity kinda way. 

But in a let’s try something new, let’s measure it, let’s decide if it works, and if it works, let’s implement it.

Then, LET’S DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN.