From Surviving to Thriving:Sharpening your Instincts in a Digital Age

Inspiring people. Lifting capabilities. Growing organisations.

From Surviving to Thriving:Sharpening your Instincts in a Digital Age

Presented at the Marketing Academy Lecture

21st August 2014

What do we do at Brand Learning?

Lifting the capabilities of people and organisations to drive growth by creating better value for their customers

Instincts – key to our survival

Instincts de-risk situations

Fused with feelings they power intuition

They have influenced our marketing decisions for decades

Instinct Feeling Intuition

Marketers tap into audience’s instincts for maximum impact

Such as Hope Soap driving a greater chance of survival itself

Watch the video on the next slide...

But even informed intuition isn’t enough

Instincts draw on our experiences

Historic data helps shape them over time

But the world has changed dramatically…And so must we

Instinct Historic Data Informed Intuition

Our instincts and

intuition help us

de-risk life but in

doing so we risk

missing the bigger

picture

Don’t miss the bigger picture

In times of such rapid and considerable change,

our new digital reality requires a different

approach.

We need to sharpen our instincts for the

Digital Age

The past is less able to prepare us for the future

1. Re-awaken our inner ‘Hunter

Gatherer’

Organisations are facing a stark new reality

Conversations with our clients across the globe, reveal two types of reaction to digital disruption

Those who are actively concerned by disruption and are dramatically altering the way they do business (before someone else does it to them)

Those who look for signs that things are still the same and underplay the situation potentially missing the digital opportunity

In both camps instincts play a role, an instinct for pure survival vs. instinct for new rewards which could power you to success

We consider this ‘Marketing in a Digital Age’, rather than ‘digital marketing’It creates the opportunity to look at our tools of old and review them through a digital lens…

What does“Sustainable competitive advantage”

mean today?

Threat of new entrantsBarriers to entry• Economics of scale• Product differentiation• Capital requirements• Switching cost to buyers• Access to distribution channels• Other cost advantages• Government policiesIncumbents; defence of market share Industry growth rate

Rivalry among existing firms

Number of competitors (concentration)Relative size of competitors (balance)Industry growth rateFixed costs vs. variable costsProduct differentiationCapacity augmented in large incrementsBuyers’ switching costsDiversity of competitorsExit barriersStrategic stakes

Determinants of buyer power

Number of buyers relative to sellersProduct differentiationSwitching costs to use other productBuyer’s profit marginsBuyers’ use of multiple sourcesBuyers’ threat of backward integrationImportance of product to the buyerBuyer’s volumeThreat of substitute products

Relative price of substituteRelative quality of substituteSwitching costs to buyers

Determinant of supplier power

Supplier concentrationAvailability of substitute inputsImportance of suppliers’ input to buyerSuppliers’ of industry to suppliersBuyers’ switching cost to other inputSuppliers’ threat of forward integrationBuyers’ threat of backward integration

In a world where a competitive advantage often evaporates in less than a year, companies can’t afford to spend months at a time crafting a single long-term strategy.

To stay ahead, they need to constantly start new strategic initiatives, building and exploiting many transient competitive advantages at once.

Should we be looking for“Transient Competitive Advantage”

instead?

Launch

Returns

Ramp up Exploit Recon-figure

Disengage

Nike move from a sports apparel business to a sports and software one, entering and exiting segments when the timing is right

So, who is seeking out transient competitive advantage?

Even new-to-the-world brands such as Uber are already evolving their seemingly winning formula

“We’re 1% done”

What does a transient competitive advantage company sound like?

2. Rewrite the laws of attraction…

We’re genetically programmed to be attracted to those who feel familiar or similar to ourselves. Similar is safe.

We live in a world of

AlgorithmsNetworks

Predictive Models

Effectively placing us in virtual ‘swim lanes’ of experiences

Yet behind many of these tech companies lies an interesting intersection of different skill sets

Different skillsets bring breakthroughs

Different partners bring different perspectives

The same inputs generate the same outputs

Find new business partners for new outputs

Become attracted to different people

Instinct Different Partners New laws of Attraction

3. From Retrospective

Intuition to Forecasted Judgement

“In God we trust; all others must bring data”W Edward Deming

Use ‘now’ data to predict the future vs. interpret the past

The signposts to

tomorrow are all around

us

We just need to know

where to look for them

And keep an open mind

so we can find them

Use the data you already have within your business and wider partner networks – the clues are there

Use what you already have

Use data to forecast where the ‘puck’ will be for your business

"A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” Wayne Gretzky

4. From Fight or

Flight to Constructive

Curiosity

How do you respond to the ‘new’?

“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies”

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

Douglas Adams, Author of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

We need to become accustomed to dealing with change

Disruption often leads to a drop in performance.

We need to become better equipped at

managing the change.

Move to the new status quo faster and leverage

the new transient competitive advantage.

Be constructively curious.Overcome any concern of the new to reveal the opportunity

Haptic feedback used to

train surgeons & deliver

surgeries ‘remotely’ in

future

Smart cloth used to tell

airlines how their

passengers are feeling

Interested in hearing more about the 4 sharpened instincts?

We offer interactive workshops on

‘Sharpening your Instincts for the Digital Age’

which can be customised to individual brands

and businesses.

Please email team@brandlearning.com or

follow us on Twitter @brandlearning if you

would like to hear more.

Thank you.

New YorkBrand Learning Inc.80 Broad StreetSuite 2101New YorkNY 10004Tel: (+1) 212 392 4898

London

Brand Learning Partners Ltd.Burgoine Quay8 Lower Teddington RoadHampton Wick Kingston-upon-ThamesSurrey, KT1 4ERTel: (+44) 208 614 8150

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3 Temasek Avenue Centennial Tower Level 21-00 Singapore 039190Tel: (+65) 6549 7935

Inspiring people. Lifting capabilities. Growing organisations.

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