AUTHOR OF THE MONTH
Bob Gilbreath is Chief Marketing Strategist at Bridge Worldwide, one of the nation’s largest digital advertising agencies and part of WPP. Bob leads the Strategic Planning team within the agency, advising clients such as Procter & Gamble, ConAgra Foods, Kroger, Luxottica, and Abbott. He is the author of The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with your Customers by Marketing with Meaning, which was released by McGraw-Hill in October 2009 (www.marketingwithmeaning.com).
His writing has been featured in Brandweek and Entrepreneur, he has spoken at Ad:Tech and Harvard Business School, and been interviewed in ABC News. Bob joined Bridge Worldwide after leading a dramatic turnaround of the Mr. Clean brand at Procter & Gamble. He was recognized by Advertising Age as one of the Top 50 marketers of 2004. He received his MBA in marketing from the NYU/Stern School of Business and his BA in Economics from Duke University. Bob lives in Cincinnati with his wife and two daughters and is the President of the Board at The New School Montessori.
Contact: b.gilbreath@bridgeworldwide, 513-618-7905, Twitter: @mktgwithmeaning |
- What is the inspiration behind “The Next Evolution of Marketing”? How did the concept come about?
For years I worked as a brand manager at Procter & Gamble and learned the “rules” of traditional marketing, which essentially focused on developing a short, simple product sales message and broadcasting it in front of as many eyeballs as possible. But over time I began to see our consumers ignoring and rejecting our interruptive messages in greater numbers. On the other hand, they were willingly coming to our websites, requesting samples and signing up to receive valuable content from our emails. I came to see that in a world where people can control their media consumption, it will become harder for us to interrupt them with our advertising. But with the rise of new media like mobile, digital and social, we have the chance to chance to provide added value information, services, and experiences. I realized that this represented an entirely new evolutionary break from the historic marketing model, to what we call “Marketing with Meaning.” The purpose of this book is to serve as a guide for traditional marketers who are looking for a way to adjust to changes in consumer habits and grow share and sales.
- Aside from those mentioned in the book, what other companies in your opinion best exemplifies Marketing with Meaning? How and Why? What companies have remained traditional in their marketing approach?
I think it is most useful to compare the approaches by direct competitors in a variety of categories where one is continuing the traditional, interruptive approach and another is beginning to add valuable content and connections. For example, Visa has launched a traditional advertising campaign with celebrities, while MasterCard created an iPhone app to help people discover “Priceless Picks” nearby. In the athletic performance product category, Gatorade launched a new TV campaign last year called “Got G?” which failed to keep it from losing significant market share, while Nike continued to grow thanks to launching digital training tools for runners and basketball players. In the tire category, Michelin updated its Michelin Man again for a series of TV ads, while B.F. Goodrich created an online community where people share their favorite cross-country drives. In many of these cases the expensive, traditional ad campaigns are failing to drive business results, yet the meaningful marketing programs are creating true engagement, sales and loyalty.
- Can all businesses benefit from Marketing with Meaning?
I have seen a wide variety of businesses succeed with this approach, from billion-dollar consumer brands to start-up B2B players to global non-profits to the corner deli near our office. The overall starting point is think about marketing as a way to earn attention from your customers by offering value before the sale, rather than paying to try and steal their attention with interruptive ads. In the book I present a step-by-step model that organizations of any kind can use to build meaningful marketing strategies and measure their results.
- How can Meaning be synthesized with other forms of marketing?
This works best as a “model” for the marketing function itself, then helps organizations decide which tactics to use and how to deploy them – whether they are “old” or “new” media. For example, Home Depot long ago chose a marketing strategy to help its customers learn how to perform home repair and improvement. With that meaningful marketing strategy in place, the company started with classes in its stores and tips in its catalogs. Over time has adjusted to new media by offering online courses and using Twitter to respond to customers’ questions.
- Is Marketing with Meaning akin to corporate responsibility?
Yes and no. I feel like “corporate responsibility” is more of an ethical or moral call for good behavior by business which they should follow even at the risk of lost sales. On one hand, Marketing with Meaning is first and foremost a marketing approach meant to maximize profits. It is a way of evolving with society’s changes in media use and attention, and even the most heartless capitalist should be smart enough to realize this is the only way to behave to grow business.
On the other hand, I do believe that there will be growing pressure for companies to behave better through the marketing that they create. Last year, for example, a protest group on Facebook was created to protest the constant airing of an annoying Toyota commercial, and another group of citizens arose to protest Citi’s naming sponsorship of the new Mets stadium—they felt it was a poor use of taxpayer’s TARP funds. So I can imagine a day when interruptive marketing is looked at broadly by society as a form of pollution, and companies may pull back for corporate responsibility concerns, even if it is still driving sales for them.
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