The Future is Marketing Pro-gility?
I know I know, portmanteau words are horrible and process + agility = pro-gility is a real stinker. But hopefully it’s a useful way of getting your attention and explaining how we at Flock see agile ways of working integrating with marketing processes. As a marketer you are always doing one of three things:
- Regular stuff you’ve done before and will do again, like running campaigns
- Finding ways to improve the regular activities e.g. optimising campaign processes
- Discovering and testing whole new approaches and ideas e.g. creating new services, developing new offers
For #1 you need a process – a reliable, optimal way of doing something. For #2 and #3, you will do best if you deploy some sort of agile method. Probably ‘lean’ for #2, like the car manufacturers do on the production line, and ‘scrum’ for #3, where you quickly create something that works, get real-life consumer feedback and then reiterate.
The trick is to correctly deploy process and agile ways of working. This is what the Flock team does and it works well, allowing us to fine-tune the approach to regular stuff (capability assessments, agency appraisals) and rapidly work through new challenges, making big adjustments as we go, as required.
And here’s the other piece of good news – your agencies are already working this way and can’t wait for your team to do the same. It will increase development speed, reduce failure rates and make the whole experience much more satisfying and rewarding.
At our next CMO Roundtable lunch (14 November) we’ll be sharing more about pro-gility (without using the crappy word combo) and hearing how CMOs from a diverse range of businesses approach ‘agile’. If it’s anything like the last round-table there will be a really good discussion in a very pleasant location. “Gezellig has that sprinkle of gently grown-up magic and a glint of wine-loosened mischief.” – Evening Standard
The next Flock CMO Roundtable lunch takes place on November 14, 2019, at Gezillig Restaurant, High Holborn. We can generally squeeze in a couple of latecomers, so if you’re a ‘client-side’ marketing leader and would like to attend please email julie.marshall@flock-associates.com (quickly).
