Welcome to the Marketing Meta
This is going to be a newsletter about marketing and digital strategy. The name Marketing Meta comes from Cedric Chin’s post about metagames. Specifically the following quote:
The best marketers … well, the best marketers play the metagame of marketing. The metagame of marketing emerges from the fact that all marketing channels decline in efficiency over time.
I agree that all marketing channels decline in efficiency over time. This statement is where I differ in opinion with Cedric:
The quicker they identify new channels and the longer they keep their playbooks secret, the better the marketing game becomes for them.
I disagree with the notion that new channels should be kept a secret. I’ve spent the past few years implementing marketing using frontier technologies like AR with outsized returns relative to resources needed (money, time). Even if the results are public there is difficulty achieving adoption. Why?
Something I don’t think Cedric accounts for in his understanding of the marketing meta is corporate finance, corporate politics and the preference of consulting/agency services among top marketers. I’ll go into these three topics because I think is it a necessity to truly understand the marketing meta.
Corporate Finance - In large organizations, a large portion marketing spend goes to what previously works the best. Large organizations use debt financing for things like stock buybacks. Private equity firms finance their buyouts assuming some predictability in cash flow. This requires a good portion of marketing spend to have predictable outcomes. Optimized returns on marketing in new channels are sometimes also associated with higher variance. Variance that debt financing seeks to avoid. There are logical reasons as to why marketing optimization is not a priority for incumbents.
Corporate Politics - In large organizations, corporate politics exist. There are varying levels of dysfunction in marketing departments of larger organizations. The important thing to consider is that resources are often allocated annually and department/channel heads are incentive to get more for their own department/channel in the name of career advancement. Different marketing leaders are also sometimes incentivized to see their colleagues fail in large organizations. We can’t pretend this behavior doesn’t exist if our goal is truth.
Preference of consulting/agency services among top marketers - many top marketers want to work on a variety of projects. This pushes them to be part of the consulting/agency universe. The process of sales of services requires some element of making ideas public. The notion of secret insights only holds true for the “client side.” Even then, “client side” promotions often come from other organizations which means revealing information publicly.
I note all of of this because I will account for these factors as I explore my thoughts associated with the marketing meta. I am not a fan of conceptual frameworks that don’t account for reality. All of this said, I still believe in this statement: “The metagame of marketing emerges from the fact that all marketing channels decline in efficiency over time.”
My interest specifically is in challenger brands and new ventures. I believe that new opportunities are arising all the time because large organizations are not properly incentivized to completely optimize marketing.
On the corporate finance side, something to consider is that new ventures and challenger brands are often financed with equity. The comes with different incentives. Yes, there is a need to “show lines and not dots.” But there are also occasions where you need to show jumps. This newsletter will likely explore opportunities for jumps that matters to challenger brands and new ventures but not necessarily incumbents.
Like a fantasy novel that starts with a map followed by the dramatis personae, I hope this first piece of writing can serve as a guide as to setting context for what is to come. It will be an exploration of a changing world with different players with different incentives. It is about the marketing meta the way I see it.