Hi all,

Last week I took some time to go to a seminar with Michele entitled Happiness and its Causes.  It was a secular thing but had a full range of wonderful people both from a range of secular disciplines and religious traditions. A key draw card was the Dali Lama. Thankyou all for creating the space for me to attend this.

There were some brilliant speakers. The quality of accademic work and the increasing insight we are gaining from the dialogue between science, philosophy and religion is remarkable. For example neuroscience is now identifying that various forms of mind exercises may be able to prevent the onset of altzheimers and physiologists can now measure the beneficial chemical changes that occur in the body during meditation.

So what did I take out of this.

1 the skills that we have as researchers are so relevant today and a challenge is for us is to learn how to apply them for communal good. For example there was the debate about is it indulgent to focus on your own happiness rather than the happiness of others. Some researchers in the US constructed an controlled experiment where they had people visit phone booths. In half the phone booths they left some money lying round so the respondents had positive experience. Then they had a researcher walk by and drop a bundle of papers. The respondents leaving the booth where they had found the money were more than twice as likely to help pick up the dropped papers.  Hence the conclusion..if you get yourself feeling good you are more likely to help others. Simple but brilliant. If we could do stuff like this Id be stoked.

2 Compassion …like random annonymous acts of kindness are a great driver of happiness. Compassion for your enemy is a winner. Compassion for your friend is a little loaded. Apparently is all about empathy for human beings.

3 Economists have shown there is a positive relationship between money and happiness that peaks out at $15000 per person per annum. After that the absolute ammount has nothing to do with happiness…..its all about if you get more or less than someone else..and of course since most of us increase at about the same rate….feeling rat like?

4 You can tell how happy someone is from the look on their face..really…theres a smile where the lips turn up in the corner and the eyes squint thats a dead give away. There is an academic term for this kind of smile.

5 Being detached from material things and being grateful with what you have is  good place to be…learn to say thankyou often.

6 There is a school of thought that’s prominent at Monash that involves the concept of Mindfullness…there is a book I want to read on this. Its about stilling the mind through mind training that has all sorts of positive health and happiness benefits. Meditation and prayer could fall into this category.

7 There are some brilliant accademics here and I have some great ones earmarked to talk to us at some time and others that I will involve in our business in various ways.

8 We all need to spend more time with our kids..really the question is not why our kids are deserting us but the reverse. This is a biggie.

I notice I have really used the word really a lot here…but Im really really excited

9 The book “The Secret” that I mentioned in my last blog was bagged by Clive Hamilton of the Australia institute. Clive thinks all this modern self help stuff is big in helping the helpers. Clive recons the basic problem is materialism and the biggest rouges are the manipulating marketers and the polies that put GDP growth before all else.. he may have a point but he doesnt give a realistic alternative.  For me I take what works for me and I hope that spills over to others. I have found martyrs are not that practical.

10 Father Chris Riley says that to give youth the self belief that the have power by enabling them to have control and give shape to their visions is the key to their happiness. He thinks all billionairres should be locked up. I wonder if he includes Bill Gates.

At the end of the day as the Dali Lama said when someone asked him ” whats the meaning of life” he answered ” I dont know”… thats about it for me too. But have a think about some of the points and if they work for you…

But I am thankful that I could go ..so once again thankyou.

John

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In the middle of a frantic last week I did not even have time to answer a call from Gabrielle telling me my Mum had a stroke and was in hospital paralysed.

Its so easy to get misled into thinking we are in control. Particularly we people who call ourselves managers. But like my Mum, in a second we can be reduced to a living dependent. 

What are we controlling really. In all moments we are in the hands of something far greater. 

It may be serendipity but after visiting my Mum, I found myself reading a book called “The Secret”. Its one of those Oprah Winfrey self help things. The main message is that there is a law of the universe …as potent and consistent as the law of gravity and that is that like attracts like. We get exactly what we want and what we want is shaped by how we think.  We are in the hands of “the universe” and that we are given whatever our thinking asks for.  It was great….find it and read it.  As a result I am writing this blog for all who want to read.

Does our thinking create illness or health.  Its a challenging concept.  A stroke..who knows. But in recovery the role of thinking is very evident.

My mother is making great progress.  She is seeing each day as a step up. She is laughing at herself and cracking jokes. This is a woman who was often burdened by the responsibilities of life. Someone who saw the glass as half empty more often.

I can be that way too. I am starting on a journey today that has me working on how I think. And in doing that it will be more about using the law that like attracts like. Creating the thoughts about the life that we want is the first step toward having that be a reality.

John

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Yesterday I was called by a key executive of Telstra who advised me that Telstra has just completed a review of all their market research suppliers and Colmar Brunton came out top of the list. What a remarkable accolade that Australia’s biggest research spender rates us as No1.

When you see the work that comes out and the effort that goes in it is not surprising. But we are mostly reluctant to blow our own trumpet. The Telstra team is great balance of experience and youth. They have taken this account to one of our biggest by great service, being proactive and doing great quality work.

One service that always impressed me was a mystery shop of all the Telstra competitor products …a proactive piece used to interpret a track, that grew to be one of the most useful tools in Telstra. That was the work of a young grad working on the account who simply took the initiative. Those stories have been repeated many time in the life of our service to Telstra.

If you well serve one of Australias biggest and best companies in their market, you end up becoming one of the biggest and best in your own market. Thats what we are becoming. Well done to all the Telstra team and power to those who seek to serve.

 

The era of Private Equity is upon us. As Private Equity firms increase their influence the marketing discipline is loosing out. In the USA the average length of the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) has declined to 18 months. What is strategic or long term when the leaders of the discipline survive less than 2 financial years? And where are the great marketing gurus today. It is as if the great marketing and advertising personalities are of a bygone generation. And with their passing the marketing has lost potency. In Australia who is replacing the likes of John Singleton, Mo and Jo, Hugh Mackay. Off shore is much the same. Philip Khotler is still the main author of marketing texts. The Saatchi brothers were the last great profile ad men.

Board rooms have always been dominated by the financial and legal professions and today they are stronger than ever.A colleague of mine, who worked for a global marketing services company, recently accounted the experience of being managed by a Private Equity company. He believed they (the PE owners) knew more about the marketing services business than its managers. Why?  Because PE companies get really clear about where profit is being generated and where it is being eroded. They do this via intense and detailed analysis. They measure everything and measurements form part of analysis and analysis drives decision making. Like many I have wondered how is it that PE companies are able and prepared to pay above market rates to acquire companies. The answer is, they are able to manage the acquisitions to provide greater value.

So how well does marketing fit into this new thrust in business. The answer is not that well. It is often considered a “soft” discipline. Arguably developments in recent years have increased this perception. The advent of a far more fragmented media market has increased the difficulty in measuring of cause and effect. The head of the AFA (Advertising Federation of Australia) says it is not uncommon for a marketing campaign to deal with upward of 70 touch points. I was recently at a conference in Europe where the head of Innovation for P+G said they were “out of control” when it comes to handling new media. They have no way to adequately analyse ROI. P+G have always been among the world’s best when it comes to measurement and analysis. Its reputation is built as much around its processes as its results. It is a formula that found favour in financial circles. And while they are engaging the new media they still invest the bulk of their marketing funds in areas where their tried and proven measures and analyses direct decision making.

Part of the problem is that P+G are the exception. Far too much marketing money is spent without adequate accountability. Part of the problem is the lack of connection between finance and marketing. Many marketing finance teams are not much more than cost accountants. What appears to be missing is a real understanding of what is possible from the linking of these two skills. There are many analytical skills in both areas which are quite different and quite complementary. For example the evolution of market mix and choice modelling skills are not well understood in finance circles. The potential for these to be applied to financial decisions is significant.  They can be applied to market forecasting, revenue and profit sensitivity analyses, allocation of limited marketing funds, determining the strength of a brand, formulating prices strategies, determining the ideal portfolio and so on. Yet they are used in almost exclusively by marketing teams and in a very limited way. It is extraordinary how many marketing plans are put together with superficial quantitative analysis. For example marketing executives will develop strategies around what are considered “market drivers” yet in most cases these have not substantiated or quantified and hardly ever has the potency of the “market driver” been calculated.  Another analytically light section in marketing plans and strategy documents is demand forecasting. Numbers may be present but seldom are they based on future scenarios being quantified in a rigorous manner. New ideas may be “researched” but not often in a manner that allows any scientific assessment of how customers will behave when presented with the new offer alongside all the current offers. Often extensive profit forecasting and sensitivity analyses will be undertaken largely manipulating cost components…all on the back of rubbery demand forecasts.Boards often sign off large marketing budgets or even acquisition proposals without adequate understanding of the resilience of the revenue forecasts. So for most cases marketing initiatives are justified on “soft” numbers and results are hit and miss. It’s not surprising that the analytically driven PE companies are not inviting marketing professionals to the table.  It’s a little ironic as demand/revenue issues are among the least controllable in business and one would think expertise in this area would be highly relevant.So the marketing industry has some thinking to do.   There seems to be no stepping away from financial accountability in today’s business environment. Maybe the nature of gurus of past generations is no longer relevant and we will not see high profile marketing personalities again. But Marketing needs to be at the table more than ever before.  The way it needs to earn its place is by finding links between it hard (numbers) and soft (human) side. This can be done and it allows the demand/revenue side of business to be interrogated with much greater rigour than often is the case today. It needs to embrace financial skills and financial analysts need to learn more about more advanced marketing analytics.

The role of a marketing finance needs to redefined as more than just controlling marketing expenditure to one of understanding the drivers of revenue and hence profit and ensuring the top lines in most marketing  plans based on better analysis. Consumer Insights, Planning and Finance teams in Marketing organisations need to be looking at how to work more closely.

The marketing institutions should play a role as well and encourage cross fertilisation of skills. Marketing and Advertising conferences and courses are often inward looking affairs where there is not a great deal of focus on how Marketing integrates with other business disciplines, particularly finance.

There is a wonderful book called The Wisdom of Crowds written by James SurowieckiOne of its fundamental teachings is that decisions are likely to be better when made by a diverse group. Surely to have the customer seat vacant in the higher level business decision making forums is leading to poorer decisions. To become part of the decision making crowd marketers need to learn their language.                                                 �

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