I recall my grandmother emphasizing her point by saying, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” As a young boy, I wondered why anyone would want a purse made out of a pig’s ear in the first place.
But I digress. What grandma really meant is that you can’t expect to create something of exceptional quality or beauty out of inferior materials. And the same holds true for objectives, strategies and tactics.
As brand marketers, we must recognize that “brilliant strategy,” when executed poorly, is seldom exceptional at all. Building something special takes leadership that clearly envisions the outcome and articulates the objective and effectively leads the plan to achieve it. Further, the insightful strategist must equip the team with the assets and tools that enable the desired results.
More often than not, it’s those of us who sit behind CMO desks and around C-suite tables who devise the strategy in the first place. And then what happens? We hand off the hard part—tactical execution—to well-intentioned managers and agency teams. Sometimes things go strikingly well. Pats on the back for everyone. But when execution stumbles, who evaluates the outcome? The same executives who developed the strategy!
It shouldn’t surprise us that a failed outcome almost always turns out to be “bad execution.” Or is it? Might the strategist have a blind spot? It’s hard for those passing judgement to be objective and point the finger of blame back at themselves.
If a strategy produces poor results, how can we assert that it’s brilliant? It’s certainly an odd definition. At the end of the day, a strategy’s purpose is to generate positive outcomes. If that doesn’t happen, the strategy clearly wasn’t so hot. In what other field would we label as “brilliant” something that failed miserably? A Broadway play that’s canceled after just one week? A political campaign that loses by a landslide?
With an impartial mind, we must accept that the only strategy that legitimately can be called brilliant is one that generates results. Without them, the strategy has failed. Why? Because strategy must enable effective tactics. Execution matters! Consider this strategic formula. I’ll use PEMCO as the example (Please favor the favorable bias.)
Goal: We call it “winning”: Sustained profitable growth of households.
Mission: To enable and protect dreams of responsible Northwest people.
Vision: Hearing customers and consumers say, “PEMCO gets it!”
Objective: Be recognized and talked about as the hyper-local insurance carrier.
BHAG: (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) Never having to advertise for a lead again!
Strategy: Lead with relationships—Northwest style.
Strategy: Deliver world-class customer experiences at every touchpoint, every day.
Strategy: Turn routine touchpoints into remarkable talking points.
Strategy: To show Northwest residents that we know them in ways others don’t.
Marketing approach: All tactics flow from this: Demonstrate that PEMCO is the truly local brand that knows the Northwest and the people who live here better than anyone else, and that PEMCO shows up where our neighbors live, work, learn and play. After all… “We’re a lot like them. A little different.”
All of that aligns, top to bottom. Some have called it brilliant strategy. Others, brilliant execution. I say it’s connecting the dots that makes the difference.
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Rod Brooks is the VP/chief marketing officer of PEMCO Insurance. You can reach him at rod.brooks@pemco.com.