by Lesley Neadel
Jim Stengel kicked off the 2008 ANA Annual Conference with his keynote address, “Five Lessons in Marketing, in Branding, in Life.”
Jim is the former Global Marketing Officer for Procter & Gamble, and imparted the wisdom of his career lessons upon the crowd. He said, “This is a good time to reflect on the first 25 years of my career, and share my plans for what comes next.” What comes next is Jim Stengel, LLC, where Jim will seek to be a catylyst and change agent globally, to push marketing to a much higher level of purpose and performance.
- Lesson 1: Put people at the center of everything you do.
He shared a quote from former P&G colleague RR Dupree: “If you took away all of our brands, facilities, offices, and just left us our people, we’d build it all back up within ten years.” The essence was that brands are people – and that it is the collective intent of all of the people behind it that makes a brand what it is.
Jim also pointed out that at the end of your career, what you’ll remember are the people and the relationships and what you did together, so that’s what matters the most.
- Lesson 2: Engage your heart and your mind in everything you do.
Jim emphasized the need for balance between heart and mind too, and asked for the qualities that make a good relationship. The audience helped out with words like honesty, trust, generosity, love… and Jim pointed out that if we thought about these qualities as a part of everything that we do – packaging, branding, media, etc., we’d do and measure things very differently. Examples that he gave of brands that do this well are Apple, Amazon, and Southwest Airlines.
- Lesson 3: Focus on results, not activity
Too much time, Jim said, is spent on short term efforts, not long term loyalty building activities - and these are not the things that cause results. At P&G in order to advance, employees must show growth in their business, brand AND with people – and a balance between these. As an industry, marketers are just not where we need to be there.
- Lesson 4: Respect and embrace agency relationships and the power of creativity
No great organization exists that is not a creative organization. When Jim started his career, he brought all agencies – all of whom are competitors – into a room to figure out how to work together to get the best results. He stressed the need for that partnership, and the need to have the right conversations with your agencies to motivate them.
- Lesson 5: Have a purpose – in marketing, in branding, in life.
Jim feels so strongly about this statement that it is what will guide the next phase of his life. This is not ideals-based branding, or even just cause marketing. This is having an inspiration and motivational reason for being for your brand, and having all activity emanate from that. Good examples are Nike, Goldfish crackers, and Old Spice.
He ended by encouraging anyone in the audience who had been inspired or motivated to make a commitment to bring these five lessons to their brand, and see what happens.
Here’s hoping that everyone remembers Jim’s lessons and shares them with the rest of their teams. The advertising industry would be all the better for it.
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