The Retail Wars Rage On, Marketing Lessons from Hammurabi, and how Petco ‘Amazon-Proofs’ E-Commerce
Marketing Trends, 11/21/17
Quote of the Day
“Technology has completely changed what fast means. We are on an agility mission right now because speed is different than agility. What we’re trying to build is the capability to go in new directions fast, not just go straight ahead fast, and that’s a really different muscle for us to build.” ~Jeff Jones, CEO, H&R Block and fmr CMO, Target
Marketing Trends is a daily curated report of industry news designed to help executives in marketing, advertising and branding create ROI producing media, stories, and campaigns that deliver long term results.
News that Matters
- FCC plans to roll back Net Neutrality Rules (NYT)
- The Black Friday wars rage on between retailers and Amazon. WSJ reports that retailers like Walmart and Target have a few tricks up their sleeve to offer exclusive in-store items and loyalty perks.
- Does the future of shopping have no price tags? Amazon and Calvin Klein combined to do a pop up in NYC and LA that features an Instagram friendly buying experience sans pricing. Basically you just scan the barcodes. Moving on…
- China is emerging as a tech superpower (Fortune). It’s worth paying attention to because you’re going to be doing some form of marketing there some day.
Lessons Learned
“There are so many solutions out there. Managing it all requires a substantial time investment. I want a partner who can lay out a roadmap for me. We have 57 vendors just in marketing technology. And you need a data scientist who has the keys to unlock what you’re sitting on.” — Jenn McMillen, former Vice President, Marketing & CRM, Michaels Stores
- Harvard Business Review interviewed 57 female CEOs (only 6% of F500 CEOs are female, yikes!) to figure out how they, and others, can make it into the top job. CMOs could be the next feeder system.
- How Petco is Amazon-proofing its e-commerce strategy.
Cheat Sheet: everything you need to know about Amazon Advertising.
Original Content, Series, and Shows
Ever wonder where you’re going to find that next hot track to accompany your latest TV ad or video-centric marketing campaign. Look no further than the 30 most-consumed songs of 2017. You might pay a pretty penny for licensing rights, but you may as well stick your product next to that song in the minds of consumers.
Amazon is piloting talk shows now. This one about a pastor’s message in a Seattle church that has attracted a few celebs to the congregation. $AMZN’s content strategy is all over the map these days.
Check out Upstairs Amy, a Walmart Original Series in association with Interaca, featuring Amanda Muse and Cheryl Torrenueva. Our friends at Shaftesbury created a great piece of original content featuring popular YouTube influencers. I recommend you go look at the comments, lots of Amanda’s super fans loving the series and asking for longer episodes. They even have some backstage vlog action going on. Plus Winning the Holidays with Cher Cher. Thanks to Lesley Breeze for sharing!
Storytelling
“Almost 4,000 years ago, King Hammurabi of Babylon, Mesopotamia, laid out one of the first sets of laws.
Hammurabi’s Code is among the oldest translatable writings. It consists of 282 laws, most concerning punishment. Each law takes into account the perpetrator’s status. The code also includes the earliest known construction laws, designed to align the incentives of builder and occupant to ensure that builders created safe homes:
- If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction firm, and the house which he has built collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death.
- If it causes the death of the son of the owner of the house, they shall put to death a son of that builder.
- If it causes the death of a slave of the owner of the house, he shall give to the owner of the house a slave of equal value.
- If it destroys property, he shall restore whatever it destroyed, and because he did not make the house which he builds firm and it collapsed, he shall rebuild the house which collapsed at his own expense.
- If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction meet the requirements and a wall falls in, that builder shall strengthen the wall at his own expense.”
It goes on to describe how this ancient man understood and implemented incentives, accountability, and reciprocity to manage the nation-states that he built. A lot of overlap into how you might want to consider managing your own divisions and teams.
Continue reading The Code of Hammurabi: The Best Rule To Manage Risk at Farnam Street.
Marketing Q&A
Q: What is this emerging Chief Customer Officer position and how do I get to be that?
A: Andreessen Horowitz just had an event where this was the exact topic. They turned it into a podcast with thoughts by a16z’s Matt Levy (partner on the exec talent team), Allison Pickens of Gainsight, Krista Anderson-Copperman from Oktam, and Hatima Shafique from Databricks.
Spotlights
Check out the Art of the Dinner Party, long form by The New York Times.
Did you know AWS has a Digital Marketing platform?
Opportunities
New Year’s Resolution to get a new gig? Get started early this year. If you’ve never taken a look at Angel List for job opportunities, they have a search specific to CMOs. So we went ahead and linked to it to make it easy for you.
Branded is brought to you by our team at The Mission. We create original content, shows, and series for brands and distribute them to our audience of millions. To learn more, connect with us here. Or you can email me at ian (at) themission.co
