In marketing? Then you’ve definitely had this conversation…
If you’ve been in marketing for more than a moment, you will have had a conversation with a colleague, someone in sales or on the executive team that goes a little bit like this:
Them: Have you seen that big competitor X is doing Y?
You: Yes, of course
Them: Why aren’t we doing Y? …. But, you know, with more cowbell?
(OK, I maybe they don’t say cowbell; I’m just flinging that at every post at the moment)
Or maybe your guilty secret is that when you have a marketing problem, we wonder:
What would competitor X do?
(We’ve all done it)
This is what I am calling Green Eyed Marketing (GED).
The problem with GED is that what the helpful colleague can’t see is the level of effort to make that happen, but more importantly, how it performed.
Yes, it looked cool (maybe that’s enough for a brand metric), but did it resonate with the buyer?
Did it move the needle in any way, create awareness, revenue, and trust, or did it just impress other vendors, commentators, and the people of the goldfish bowl?
All we see is what was above the waterline – the tactic – we don’t see the campaign from inception to results.
The problem, of course, is that this could create a domino effect; we all start doing a tactic because everyone is doing it, yet none of us are getting results.
It reminds me of an event a vendor I worked for sponsored every year. We’d all go, but it barely generated any opportunities – yet all our competitors were there.
It was only after I left the vendor and returned to the event as an independent analyst and consultant that I discovered all of the exhibitors said the same thing: it was not commercially good for them, but they came because everyone else did, and they worried how it would look to the goldfish bowl if they didn’t.
Other people’s marketing tactics within our category and beyond should inspire us, but we should beware of green eyed marketing.
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I’m a 3xCMO, now a marketing strategy advisor and podcast host at Rockstar CMO. Although, I’m not a rock star, but a marketing leader, strategist, content marketer, columnist, speaker, industry watcher, and creator of ART (Awareness, Revenue, and Trust) for the companies I work with. But most of all, I am an enthusiastic tea drinker.
You can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, or now Threads! – or listen to my weekly podcast at Rockstarcmo.com
The half-baked thoughts shared on this blog may not reflect those of my employer or clients, and if the topic of this article is interesting or you just want to say hello please get in touch.