I just saw this online - with no credits, and it reminded me of my father who was a Master Cabinet Maker in Germany before he and our family moved to Canada after WW2. He used to tell me stories about some of the clients that came to the family business in the early 1900s with their unrealistic design, delivery date and price expectations.

In Canada he managed the construction and subsequent maintenance of a dozen large office buildings in Toronto. He used to tell me stories about some of the clients that came to the construction company's head office with their unrealistic design, delivery date and price expectations.

While I spent my career in advertising, I ran into my share of those clients too. They didn't know much, but they all knew how to make any well thought out idea or campaign much "better", how to get the job to the finish line faster, and how do do it cheaper.

Clearly this studio has met one too many clients who know it all.

I love their polite response.

Mark Edward Wicken - Obituary

October 24, 1944 - November 5, 2024

Mark died at home, peacefully, after a seven-month battle with cancer on November 5, 2024. He leaves behind his beloved wife, family and innumerable lifelong friends. Mark grew up in Port Credit, graduated from The University of Toronto, Victoria College, in 1967, and is a recipient of the University of Toronto Arbor Award for outstanding volunteer service to the University.

Mark began his career in advertising and worked in Toronto, Chicago and Saudi Arabia on both the Account Service and Client sides. 

He was later an educator at the International Academy of Design, Toronto Film School, and a guest lecturer at numerous other institutions. In retirement, he was the author of the book “Remember Me!”: a passion project to instill invaluable lessons and strategies for new graduates in job search and career development. 

His aptitudes were enormous: professional drummer, incredible chef, martini mixologist, and entertainer - he was inducted into the Academy of Magical Arts at The Magic Castle in Los Angeles in 2015 as a recognition of his talents as a magician. Mark served on the Board of Directors of MusicFest Canada from 1992 until 2018 and become President in 2006. He played an integral role in transforming and advancing this organization which hosts the largest education-based music festival in North America.

I’ve developed many different campaigns for a wide variety of clients in many different business categories. In the process I’ve come across a handful of practices that seem to separate the category winners from their competitors.

If you think you’ve got the best product or service and want to go global, here are some mission critical marketing strategies and tactics that need to become integral to your operations.

#1: Leading Brands March to their Own Drum

If you’re not marching to the beat of your own drum, you’re a follower, not a leader. It’s that simple. Leaders [can't help but] think differently and seize upon the opportunities they find along their chosen path. The products and services they offer are a tangible response to the problems or opportunities they've discovered. Leaders are aware of what their competitors are doing, the competitive activity (or lack of it). It helps define their pace and timing, helping them decide when and where to strike out in a new directions.

Product Managers are followers. They “compete” for established trade routes with “bigger”, “better”, “faster” or “cheaper” marketing solutions and advertising campaigns.

Leaders don’t talk price unless they’re in the discount business, or forced to.

Price is what you talk about when you have nothing else left to say.

Talking money trains customers and prospects to think about getting the best price, not the best value, let alone the best product. Price is not an advantage; for most brands it's their Achilles heel.

Leaders hunt relentlessly for meaningful ways to differentiate themselves from the competition.

Leaders defend their territory with multiple brand advantages that, in the consumer’s mind, represent a mental, physical or spiritual advantage. 

Leaders reinvent themselves and the brands they serve on an ongoing basis because change is the constant.

#2: Leaders Understand, Respect and then Redefine the Economic Terrain

Many leaders come across as adversarial because they’re not “team players”.

Guess why?

They’re not.

They’re team-leaders. 

Leadership is needed to create a brand. Concensus management to sustain it.

Leaders get clear vision[s] by doing a lot of homework (also called research) to help them understand the economic terrain. When they have enough data, the terrain looks like a geological map that defines, in three dimensions, area’s of business strength, weakness, opportunity and threat.

Leaders surround themselves with insightful stakeholders that help them define a business model that maximizes opportunity and minimizes stakeholder investment risk.

Solid values ensure that all customer-facing team members handle opportunity and adversity in the same predictable and prescribed manner – buying management time to decide if an alternate course of action is warranted or ill-advised.

#3: Leaders Create or Manage Brands that Serve Tomorrow, not Yesterday

Leaders reinvent themselves and the brands regularly because change is their constant. Their experience is made up of a host of successes and failures that help them define the frequency and the odds of success and failure for everything in the production, marketing and communications mix.

Past wins fund tomorrow’s research.
Past losses are write-offs. Little more.

#4: Leaders Understand that Audience Segmentation is Mission Critical

Leaders analyze their sales using metrics that are congruent with their brands' missions, visions and values. They define their [ideal] target groups as those customers who enable them to achieve their stated brand goals.

1. They build segmented databases featuring primary and secondary clients, prospects and suspects.
2. They take care of key accounts themselves – because having skin in the game matters.
3. They assign dedicated account managers to their high volume \ high value clients.
4. E-marketing allows them to stay in touch with (secondary) clients, prospects and suspects in transition.
5. Their supports build and refine suspect databases that turn suspects into prospects.
6. They re-market to increase product and service conversion rates.
7. They use both online and offline advertising to move new suspects through the marketing funnel.

#5: Leaders Partner People, Products and Services

Leaders segment their products and services along one line, their audience along another line and media alternatives along a third line to ensure the right product is presented to the right audience using the right medium. They take pride in their ability to create opportunities for their brands, customers and prospects to meet.

#6: Leaders Stay Out of the Trenches (most of the time)

While leaders do not underestimate the importance of re-winning their customer’s loyalty with every transaction, they do understand that the game is lost if they lose perspective. Leaders enter trenches to reacquaint themselves with day-to-day issues and keep in touch with key accounts, but leaders keep on moving because they need to keep one eye on and remain one step ahead of the competition.

In today’s fast paced world, leaders and their key supports use business, personal and social sites to market their product and services, monitor the competition, communicate and survey their audiences… all in real time.

Their online media sites are like familiar beacons that serve them well 24/7.

Because they march to their own drum, they have far more genuine news and views to share and have more interesting stories to tell (to their followers).

Leaders tell the world who they are, what they’re up to and what sets them apart from others.

They network with like-minded brands and people.

And in time more and more followers follow.