I’ve recently become acquainted with the Marketing efforts of a certain company and it sure takes the cake from Crazytown. Without naming names and embarrassing them to no end with this biting and poignant commentary, I have chosen to change the names of the company and the main characters of the company to protect them from their own industry and their own imbecility.
To be fair, they truly don’t know how moronically ineffective their Corporate Marketing has become. The main protagonist, whom I will call Yasser… just Yasser… is busy trying to run his business the best he knows how. Even though he has been in sales, and successful in it over the last few decades, the degeneration of the company’s presence, it’s messages, and the vehicles used to convey those messages has been epic.
His company, “PLO” and their Marketing dysfunction as I have said, has been epic. In the name of efficiency they have spread their facets of Marketing, graphic design, web design, database development, customer acquisition campaigns and customer retention programs to the four corners of the outsourcing community. Each with their own unique style and way of creating the projects he gave them in the past.
As the story usually goes, those who were the original builders of Yasser’s Marketing Collateral, move on, some coming to their senses and leave PLO to their wares, others show their unwillingness to be browbeaten at every turn – Yasser’s management style is another topic for another day – finish the project and let him know they are no longer available to do work for PLO.
This culture with its feeding tributaries of overbearance, micromanaging, and assumed intellectual superiority has contributed to the helter skelter and the complete Marketing disarray they now find themselves in. They did not get the original content, the raw files, the raw data, and the descriptions of who made what, how they designed it and when they did it. The result is a few poor souls, being asked to oversee the Collaterals’ shells that are left over from months of neglect.
There were no processes put into place to be used as guidelines for creation, design and implementation. There wasn’t any cache that was created to house these many Marketing pieces in the beginning, and now no one in the organization know where anything is except that which was published in their Marketing Materials and on their web site. There wasn’t any gatekeeping, there wasn’t any oversight, there wasn’t anything done to keep a cohesive collection from the various sources PLO shot these projects to.
The state of which leaves the company in a precarious situation, which can be easily rectified if it weren’t for Yasser’s pomposity getting in the way of the solution. With no original content, all projects, each piece of the Marketing Collateral must now be recreated increasing the turnaround times to 3-4 times as long as they need to be. They are unable to properly govern the many touch points that are now out there representing their services because of the various versions that are out available to the public. They cannot effectively steer their Marketing in the directions they would like because the right hand doesn’t know where the left hand placed things, or how the left managed to design them. This is crucial when it comes to customer acquisition, and could spell the end of a company who cannot get a handle on it. Let me illustrate.
Because PLO had two or more developers for their databases (the information they are asking people to fill out on their site for their different service offerings) they haven’t been able to get the two or three points of info entry to collate together into one comprehensive whole. This major defect, although they are gathering the info on those signing up for introductory or free service offers, is inhibiting the data in making its way into the hands of PLO’s sales force for further business development. Hundreds and hundreds of potential leads worth thousands and thousands of dollars is being fed to a dead end bucket to never see the light of day because Yasser and PLO are unable to a) get the original programmer to work for them and b) have another programmer to augment the original code in a timely and a cost-effective manner.
Yes the code is still there, but it is like asking Michelangelo to finish a painting or sculpture that da Vinci started. Or to have a contemporary of Mozart, or Beethoven to finish an orchestral rendering that wasn’t completed. It’s doable, perhaps, but takes a lot of time and effort to do when you are coming in after the fact of the original creation.
The moral of this story? Besides that of changing a completely defunct way of managing talent by Yasser (the other story for another time) it is the way a company must set their Marketing Collateral to endure the test of time. Yes, most is created on the fly, but there needs to be a gate keeping process put into place so that each piece follows the established brand of the company; a clearinghouse so that there is consistency in message and image; a intra-company “playground” to test before going live with a project; and a storage facility to house the raw and finished materials once they are put out into the public consciousness.
Succeed on doing this and you will ensure the consistency of your company’s branding, and Marketing efforts, which leads to consistent growth and Sales profits. Fail in this and it takes you to Crazytown with a one-way ticket and a chance to have some cake. At least PLO and Yasser will be there to keep you company… you know what they say about misery.
