THE FUTURE'S BRILLIANT

When I say that we’ve never lived in such glorious and exciting times some of you will think I’ve taken leave of whatever senses I have left. The history of mankind is pretty short in the scheme of things. If our planet had existed for just a year then Homo Sapiens would have been around for less than 10 minutes. More importantly the real, real digital action has been taking place in the past fraction of a second.

The internet and digitisation are transforming our lives. Like many I too am a sceptic when it comes to suggesting that Amazon’s warehouse in the sky 45,000 feet up dropping drones to earth to fulfil our orders in hours or minutes of our placing them is likely to be anything other than a nice bit of PR. But when I read about a company called “Zipline” which uses drone-type small planes to deliver healthcare products to the 2 billion of the world who would otherwise be denied access to them due to challenging terrain and gaps in infrastructure, I’m on my feet and applauding as potentially 3 million lives a year could be saved by this.

Two decades ago Jean-Marie Dru, worldwide Chairman of TBWA, was the proclaimed the originator of the word “disruption®“as a creative tool. Like all trendy concepts it lay quietly in the agency world for a while but has now accelerated to the point at which all business life is being disrupted, old business models are being demolished and it’s normal.

Dru says rightly that:
“Digital is forcing every single business leader in the world to rethink, sometimes to revolutionise, his or her company.”

Companies like Coca-Cola that have for over a century been a bellwether for the global economy are now wounded because they’re selling something that’s become increasingly unfashionable - sweet, sugary fizzy drinks. At a recent Marketing Week conference a delegate shocked the audience and speaker Professor Mark Ritson by asking the breathtaking question;-

“Is Coca-Cola entering its Nokia phase?”

The clock cannot be turned back despite the wishes of a large number of British Conservatives and Brexit supporters and people throughout the world especially in the American rustbelt. Globalisation is here to stay, digital is here to stay and change everything. Not least it’s likely to lead to increased unemployment as the robots get to work. It’s taken advanced societies like Finland to counter the threat of this by producing plans to introduce a living wage for everyone, whether at work or not.

With this front cover Time magazine were not being satirical. The future is nearer than any of us think. Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Total Connectivity and Limitless Creativity are here and changing our lives. Remember GE, that great manufacturing company? Well it’s now the largest software company in the world totally reinventing itself.

I’ll repeat - we have never lived in such exciting times and I am thrilled by what I see. The world really is getting better.

ENCOURAGING BAD BUSINESS TO CHANGE (OR DIE) RATHER THAN WITHER

“It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not 

die, but only retire a little from sight and afterwards return again. 

Nothing is dead; men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals 

and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the 

window, sound and well, in some new strange disguise.” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is the anthem of corporate life. The return of “motor city”. The glorious renaissance of BP. The rebirth of Merrill Lynch.  A group of us were talking about Thornton’s and Kodak and similar companies; enterprises to which the word enterprise has long ceased to be appropriate. Creatures coughing, withering and trying to reinvent themselves using the self-same ingredients that had caused their demise. Proving themselves mad as Einstein suggested:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

And yet despite all the changes that are happening daily there seems to be a curious recycling going on. Look at the top CEOs and CFOs – pretty much the usual suspects. Look at the high street and reflect in general how long it takes the mortally wounded to actually die. We concluded that all those who failed did so for two obvious reasons. Failing to give consumers what they wanted or just boring them by failing to innovate or believing that they could retain their success eternally – The Dorian Gray fallacy. Kodak executives were brainwashed into believing they were right and the world was wrong. So it was with Rank Xerox, De La Rue, Motorola and Nokia.

Executives get paralysed by the prospect and consequences of change. Courage goes with executive packages.  But let’s suppose we could change anything ahead of having to – suppose we constantly reinvented things before we got outdated or under threat.  I am not suggesting we set up a commercial Dignitas whereby dodgy companies are taken to Switzerland before they are ready but that early on they have the courage to turn their faces from the CFOs to the CMOs and say – what (if anything) can we do with what we’ve got that will be world class?

To go back to Emerson how can we create something “sound and well, in some new strange disguise.”

That’s real marketing.

FIRST OVER THE TOP GETS SHOT!

Even the originators of the FMA theory (“First Mover Advantage”), Lieberman and Montgomerie, seem to have had a change of heart. Last week I heard the eloquent Professor of Marketing at IMD, Seán Meehan, define Apple as a fast follower and not an innovator as such at all.

Hurray!

At last the dumb truth about innovation is being laid to rest. Be best not first. That ‘s also what Jonathan Mills, Director of the Edinburgh Festival, said in laying into “premieres” in the arts.

The secrets of success lie in listening to the customers who use the products, fixing the problems that exist, constantly improving the product (iPad2 looks like being a bigger triumph than iPad1 just 8 months later) and being totally clear about the promise - in Apple’s case a confident “thinner, lighter, faster.”

I loved this assertion about clarity. Most mission statements are a confusing mish-mash.

Better to be a Ryanair saying “we are the cheapest” – and reacting with surprise and indignation to the question “do you do customer satisfaction surveys?” No, they focus all their attention on their core promise. They are living proof that it is better to be respected than liked.

So the message is to nail down brilliantly what you have in that box before you think of getting out of it. Stop trying to be an “original.” Focus on getting better and better and better.

And this is a tough new world.

Motorala’s global market share in mobiles fell from 45% to 9% between 1994 and 2008 whilst Nokia’s rose from 20% to 40%. And now Nokia are facing a near death experience. Brands are not immortal. Not Nokia. Not GM. Not Toyota. Not Apple.

Which is why life is so exciting.

Anyone out there who wants to be the next Steve Jobs might make it if they are as demanding about relentless improvement, brilliant design and speed to market as he is.

They don’t have to be first, though, just much better than the others.

Although looking at the Boat Race on Saturday I wondered if there wasn’t something in FMA after all.