Marketing Management Has Become Like An Elephant Riding A Bicycle – or – What Big Data Taught Me

Here is the presentation that Professor Don Sexton and I made to the BRITE conference a couple of weeks ago.  Don made sense of the data in the first half of the presentation and I followed on with the larger implications for marketing.

Yes, the Elephant on a Bicycle is how I summarize the state of marketing management today.  The framework for marketing is like a rickety bicycle, one that was built over 30 years ago.  When you pile social media, digital OOH, mobile, the convergence of online and offline the whole contraption becomes unwieldy.  The traditional marketing approach just wasn’t built for today’s world.

It’s time to stop trying to patch up the old model.  Let the past be the past.  And move on to adopt marketing techniques that are designed specifically for today’s world.

It was truly brave of the marketers at some companies like Coca Cola, McDonald’s, VISA, etc., to admit the traditional marketing model doesn’t get you very far anymore.  Coca Cola developed their strategic storytelling model, “Liquid and Linked”.  McDonald’s under CMO Larry Light broke new ground with Brand Journalism.

This presentation is merely the tip of the iceberg of insights to be discovered in the research.   You can download the first real report of the study that was co-authored by Don and David Rogers of the Center for Global Brand Leadership at briteconference.com or from the NYAMA’s website nyama.org

Sexton and Ringer Presentation of NYAMA BRITE Study