Marketing has a productivity problem, writes Matt Houltham, CEO Starcom Australia.
Every year brings more channels, more formats, more data, more platforms and more partners. Choice has exploded. Budgets have not; time has not; and consumer attention, certainly, has not.
As budgets tighten and growth gets harder, the industry’s default response is to try to eek out a little more incremental value. Add another segment, another channel. Throw in some creators. Try that publisher. It feels productive, but often it’s just expensive motion.
The best growth decisions are rarely about doing more, they are about choosing better. Knowing what deserves investment, what deserves patience and what deserves to be shelved. Look at Starbucks. Its ‘Back to Starbucks’ strategy is not built on giving customers more. It is built on simplifying the menu, reducing complexity and getting back to the ‘coffeehouse’ experience that made the brand distinctive. That is the point: subtraction is not the absence of strategy. Sometimes, it is the strategy.
Addicted to addition
Marketers should pay attention, because the industry remains addicted to addition. Every marketing plan starts with good intent, then the layers build.
A brand platform. Some outdoor. A screen strategy. Performance plan. Social and creator activity. Search, with S.E.O. and now G.E.O (Generative Engine Optimisation). A CX roadmap, and a testing roadmap. Before long, the plan has become a collection of messy initiatives competing for budget and the same customers’ attention.
The problem is not ambition, because ambition matters. The problem is dilution. Too many brands are spreading their money across too many audiences, too many channels and too many messages, then wondering why nothing is cutting through. They are not under-planned. They are over-planned and under-focused.
The solution is to embrace what may be the most powerful word in marketing – ‘no’. Say no to audiences that are easy to buy, but unlikely to create value. No to media that delivers cheap impressions but little impact. No to metrics that keep everyone busy, but do not change a business decision. No to just repeating what you did last time.
It sounds simple. It’s not. ‘No’ is hard in marketing because every channel has a salesperson, every platform has ‘proof of effectiveness’ measurement and case studies to support, and every internal stakeholder has a favourite idea. But without ‘no’, strategy becomes theatre.
This doesn’t mean doing less for the sake of it. The point is to do fewer things with more intent, more craft and more accountability. To focus for growth.
In media, a good strategy helps make sharper choices. Start with reaching the people who deliver disproportionate value then scale up from there. Choose the media environments that are proven to work. Show up inside those environments creatively, so people notice and remember. Measure the metrics that matter, not just the activity that is easy to report. Do more of what works, and cut the rest.
Consider IGA’s ‘Share the Load’ campaign. The supermarket focused on the household ‘dinner person’, using paid social and dynamic creative to promote its Meal Solutions range specifically at the moments when the pressure of deciding what to serve was highest. This activity more than doubled sales volume and is a useful reminder that growth does not always come from adding more audiences or channels. It can come from understanding an audience deeply and showing up brilliantly when they need you most.
The bravest decision is the deletion
In my experience, the strongest marketers are not the ones with the most comprehensive plans. They are the ones with the cleanest strategy. They’ve factored in the trade-offs to focus on what matters: what audiences are most valuable, which channels are critical, and which metrics will change a decision.
That kind of discipline is uncomfortable, because not every stakeholder can get what they want. But safety is often where effectiveness goes to die.
If every audience is a priority, no audience is. If every channel matters equally, the plan has no shape. And if every metric is important, the business has no signal.
The best marketers know that leadership is not just choosing what to back. It is choosing what to stop.
What have you stopped today?
As we all gear up for an end of year flurry of activity, the most useful question might not be, “What should we add?” but “What should we stop?”
Because a little more investment behind the right audience, the right channel, and the right idea might be the difference between stagnation and compounding advantage.
In a market addicted to more, the most profitable word in marketing may be the one we use least – ‘no’.
Written by Matt Houltham, CEO Starcom Australia.
