Erik Modig is a researcher, author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He returns to the podcast to discuss the death of the marketing funnel, the issues with ROI, what it really takes to build thought leadership, and the thing that separates world-class CMOs from the rest.
3 takeaways from the conversation with Erik Modig
1. The funnel is a flawed metaphor
Sales funnels are linear, but marketing communication isn’t. People don’t move neatly from awareness to purchase. Some buy before they’re even aware of the brand, others like a brand without knowing much about it. Despite this, many companies still structure their budgets around a funnel that doesn’t reflect reality. The risk: wasting too much time and money in the “middle” of the funnel, which Erik argues is often an illusion.
2. ROI can be a trap
Digital marketing makes it easy to optimize for clicks and short-term sales, but ROI numbers can be misleading. Why? Because data often overrepresents existing customers. Discounts and retargeting may boost ROI on paper but do little for real growth. True effectiveness comes from reaching new customers and building long-term mental availability, even if that looks less efficient in the short term.
3. Great CMOs go beyond data
Erik describes three levels of marketing leadership. First, mastering short-term metrics. Second, connecting branding efforts to long-term impact. And third, the level that separates world-class CMOs, creating a vision for the future and having the courage to believe in it. Data can guide decisions, but transformational growth always requires vision, consistency, and conviction.
Watch the episode:
Podcast transcript
Josua: [00:00:00] Uh, Eric, welcome back to the show.
Erik: Thank you.
Josua: How you, so we spoke, uh, how are we? I’m, I’m doing really well, actually. I’m really excited. We’re recording this in, uh, [00:00:15] end of April, and, uh, it’s getting really green here in, in the south of Finland. And I, I can’t wait for the summer to finally be here.
Josua: I’m, I’m very ready for it. How are you doing?
Erik: Yeah. I have this sort of crazy feeling that in one way I’m sort of [00:00:30] so enthusiastic about like, oh my God, now it’s coming. It’s warm outside, it’s bright outside, but still I have this sort of a little bit of the sadness. What, what did I do here for the last six months?
Erik: Why, why, why do I live in this country where like [00:00:45] six months of the year is actually dark and cold? So I, so I get like, I’m stupid, but it’s not, it’s nice right now.
Josua: No, I can, I, I can absolutely relate to that. Uh, I’m already dreading a little bit the, the, the [00:01:00] fall, but, you know, we’ll deal with that in a couple of months.
Josua: Yeah. But, so this is the second time we’re speaking. We spoke the first time on episode number 23. So for listeners who haven’t checked that out, go check it out. It was a very popular episode, and we, we covered a lot of different topics. We talked about, [00:01:15] you know, the psychology behind creating great ads.
Josua: Uh, we talked about like, you know, importance of setting the right budgets and, and frequency and, and, and so on. So I was hoping to kind of build on that for this conversation. So kind of [00:01:30] covering a lot of different, different topics. Um, getting to pick your brain a bit as, as someone who’s doing both research and also like very close to the, the private sector and, and then the kind of front lines of marketing.
Josua: So, uh, I, I figured we’d start [00:01:45] with, with the funnel. You had a. Fairly recently had a, a, a webinar about the, the death of the funnel if the funnel is, is really dead. And if so, what that means. Yeah. So, so could you kind of explain what do you mean by a funnel for maybe those, those marketers or people listening who, who aren’t [00:02:00] familiar with the term and is the funnel really dead?
Erik: Okay, so how long time do we have here? But, but we have, so, so let’s start with, with, uh, first what the funnel is. So, uh, we have had, the origin is actually from sales [00:02:15] funnels. So that’s where, where sort of the funnel actually started to a higher extent where, where we planned sales funnels, meaning that we had companies or, or individuals going through different steps.
Erik: And we could then calculate conversion rates, for example, like here [00:02:30] we have a prospect and then we send them an email, and then we have sort of a qualified lead and then we have a sales meeting, and then we have a sales qualified lead. And, and we took customers or companies in that way through a sales funnel.[00:02:45]
Erik: However, marketing didn’t want to be bad, uh, in that, or, or worse than sales. So marketing said we also have funnels. So they went back to, to some sort of, of [00:03:00] sequential model where customers moved from what could then be sort of awareness, and then they moved into consideration and then they moved into preference, and then they moved into evaluation, and then they move into purchase, [00:03:15] and then they move into, uh, evaluation and then, uh, sort of, uh, uh, word of mouth, et cetera.
Erik: So, so, and, and this was then, uh, first of all taken from sort of Alda, the classical. Which is also [00:03:30] actually a sales model to start with. It’s sort of, uh, and we’ll, we’ll get back to Elda, we’ll get back to, but, but we build this sort of, what we call then hierarchy of effects, meaning that you have to start with awareness and then when people are aware, you can then [00:03:45] make, build knowledge, build preference, build liking, and then you build conviction and then you build sales.
Erik: So, um, uh, that’s the funnel concept. And then, yeah,
Josua: no. Okay. [00:04:00] So yeah, that, that makes total sense. So is that, I mean, I, I guess everyone, I hope everyone understands that it’s kind of a simplification, but do you think it’s a simplification to the point where it’s no longer relevant or actually useful for, um, building our marketing campaigns [00:04:15] or strategies?
Erik: Yeah, so, um, now we come to the complex part here because, uh, sales funnels are based on, uh, a very specific channel. And, and where we are measuring individuals or companies, that’s meaning [00:04:30] like the same measurement of unit and it’s, it’s one process. However, when we go over to, uh, market communication, it becomes a little bit, uh, sort of fussy because it’s not a linear process.
Erik: And, uh, [00:04:45] there’s been quite an extensive part of research showing that when it comes to market communication, there is a lot of market communication that starts actually not with awareness. They might start with making people like something and people like, ah, this [00:05:00] sounds cool. I don’t know which brand it is, but I like it, I want to purchase it.
Erik: So they started to see that market communication could actually influence people without building awareness first. We also have a lot of market communication that builds, for example, [00:05:15] action or behavioral results. First, I want, I want to purchase this. I don’t know anything about the brand, and this is quite common when it comes to, to market communication.
Erik: So. 25 years ago or 20 years ago, this was this [00:05:30] huge discussion, how does actually advertising and market communication works? And they said it could works in a lot of different ways. So therefore the sort of hierarchy of effects and funnel debate within market communication died research wise. [00:05:45] However, then it was sort of when, when we started to measure digital behavior like 20 or 50 years ago, uh, the funnel concept were introduced again and as sort of we need to find different kinds of metrics [00:06:00] in our digital funnel, sort of the touch points with our customers that we could measure.
Erik: And then we illustrated that with the funnel, however. What you did now was that you took a traditional funnel where you have one, [00:06:15] uh, when you had the same unit of measurement and a very linear process. You took a funnel metaphor and applied it to sort of aggregated measures that had quite different kinds of, of metrics.[00:06:30]
Erik: So we had the sort of brand awareness, then we had sort of, uh, uh, page visits, and then we had, uh, share of search, and then we have content interaction. We had downloads, and then we, so we started to, to use different kinds of metrics and we built what is called the sort of [00:06:45] aggregated growth funnels on brand level or touchpoint level instead of, uh, process level.
Erik: And it’s a great illustration. However, what we know is that those are [00:07:00] not naturally a funnel. Uh, but we started to assume that. So a lot of the. Sort of growth marketing funnels are built and in a strict scientific way, it’s actually not a funnel because people can move [00:07:15] back and forth and they, it’s not a linear process, it’s just like a way of illustrating it.
Erik: So some of the criticism based on, on why the funnel would be dead, it’s, first of all, uh, it’s dead because it’s, [00:07:30] it’s actually not a funnel. The metaphor doesn’t work because there are a lot of brands that build, uh, that could have a lot of their sales from existing customers. And then the funnel doesn’t look like a funnel anymore because you’re building it in a different way.
Erik: [00:07:45] So then people say, oh, the funnel is dead. Another perspective is sort of the research perspective, meaning that, uh, even when we look at market communication. The funnel is not existing because we could start with awareness or liking and, and we don’t have to build awareness to start [00:08:00] with. So that’s sort of from market communication perspective.
Erik: Uh, also people are, are arguing that it’s dead. Then we have a third argument here for why the funnel is dead, and that’s the, it came when [00:08:15] brands started because we, we built a funnel with sort of awareness, uh, sort of knowledge preference, liking and, and purchase. And people started to connect channels and messages to each [00:08:30] part of this funnel.
Erik: However, what started to become more and more clear from a lot of different data sources that people are not in the middle of the funnel. There is no one standing in the middle of the funnel [00:08:45] knowing about the brand, but waiting to be convicted or, uh, convinced or, or, or, or waiting to build preference.
Erik: People are either, I don’t know about this brand, or, ah, I’m considering this brand. So the, the middle part of the [00:09:00] funnel, we did a lot of communication or a lot of brands, did a lot of communication there with sort of pods, articles, things like that. But, but from a market communication perspective, you should, that’s not the role of market communication.
Erik: Of [00:09:15] course, we can have articles, blogs on our homepage, on our touch points, but they shouldn’t be part of sort of a market communication budget. The market communication budget should be awareness and sales. So, so a lot of [00:09:30] people are saying now, like, uh, yes, the market department, that the complete budget should of course, include things that could build interest and, and, and develop the interest, but those are actually then on the site or when people are [00:09:45] coming to, to our site.
Erik: But we shouldn’t waste market communication budget of, of trying to, to reach a lot of people with this sort of high interest, high involvement messages. The market communication budget should [00:10:00] be focused on building broad awareness across all category users and then, uh, reaching the ones, uh, very close to sales.
Erik: So that’s sort of the, the third perspective why, uh, the funnel is dead. So there [00:10:15] are, uh, a lot of different sort of schools or different experts that talk about the death of the funnel.
Josua: Okay. So kind of with the third perspective, would, would you suggest then that the right approach, like a Byron Sharp. Uh, kind of thinking where you have to build really broad [00:10:30] awareness.
Josua: So,
Erik: so we, it’s against that mar the market communication budget should do everything. Uh, because now we’re saying like, oh, we have a budget and it’s market communication. And then market communication should do every step in the funnel. [00:10:45] But he says like, no, the market communication should build mental availability.
Erik: It should build awareness. That’s what market communication do. It’s broad media then to build preference and convictions and things like that, that should other parts do. And it’s not [00:11:00] market communication. It’s sort of homepage, it’s service, it’s customer interaction. And it talks a lot about physical distribution, physical availability, and that physical availability and product packaging, et cetera.
Erik: It’s a lot of things we [00:11:15] can do there. Market communication cannot do all of these different kinds of jobs, or it shouldn’t, it’s ineffective.
Josua: Yeah. Yeah. I guess it’s important to stress what you’re saying is the, the conversation about funnel is not just about, you know, what metaphor do we [00:11:30] use or how do our dashboards look, but it’s how you think about, actually, IM, has a huge impact on how you spend your time and how you spend your marketing budget.
Josua: And most companies are, I, I, you know, um, guess this kinda my interpretation of what you’re saying is that most companies are, are [00:11:45] spending too much time in the middle of the so-called funnel and they’re, they’re focused on, they’re looking at these different steps of the funnel and these different, trying to move people from one step to the next when in actuality these steps don’t exist and they’re just kind of wasting time and wasting budget.
Erik: [00:12:00] Exactly, and, and especially when they’re doing it with the market communication budget, because I, I, I also think, I don’t know exactly how it is in Finland or or other countries you are listening from, but in Sweden we have a very tight [00:12:15] connection between marcom and marketing. So, so marketing becomes, uh, sort of equal to branding and market communication.
Erik: So when we talk about the different marketing funnels, then we think that it’s the market [00:12:30] communication and branding budget, but it shouldn’t be, uh, a lot of the different jobs that, that the marketing department needs to do according to some sort of of funnel should be done by other parts and, and other things [00:12:45] than, than market communication.
Erik: But we have a sort of a, we love paid media or earned media, which now is a paid media, but, but sort of paid media should be broad advertis. Or, or broad reach, not all the other things. [00:13:00]
Josua: What, what, what do you think is, you know, obviously funnel, the kind of concept of the misapplied concept of the funnel being one, but is there other reasons do you think, why so many companies seemingly under invests in this, it’s top of the funnel or this [00:13:15] broad media?
Josua: Um, do you think there are other reasons for that?
Erik: Yeah, so we go in the, the ROI dilemma. The RO. Like since we can, or since people think we can measure return on investment on [00:13:30] digital marketing or digital market communication, again, uh, people think it’s a good idea, but what happens then if we want high return on investment, then people say, okay, so what [00:13:45] would be the final goal of this?
Erik: It would be a click or a sale. So we are, are optimizing our, our marketing budget, uh, on that people are clicking or buying. And first, first of all, clicking And yeah, we [00:14:00] know that click is is a bad metric, but we still use it. But then we have the geniuses to say, oh, it’s not click. We are matching actual purchase.
Erik: And then they think that they solve all the problems, but they cannot see the problems because they are so smart. Sorry for being a little bit sort of, uh, but, but [00:14:15] it sounds so smart. We are optimizing our total market communication to actually in increase sales. Uh, but it’s not actually increasing sales, it’s attributing to sales.
Erik: But what is then happening is that you are [00:14:30] looking for data points that can give you an insight on who will actually purchase and. That is of course good if you are a really, really small brand because you don’t have that many existing customers. However, big brands [00:14:45] have a lot of existing customers, and those existing customers leave a lot of digital footprints.
Erik: Then they leave even more digital footprints than your non-existing customers. So the majority of data out there will start to become built [00:15:00] from your existing customers, which means that your reality comes from your existing customers and you start to see that what they’re doing and what they’re clicking and, and you start to see that, oh, they’re clicking, they’re doing this, but it’s your existing customers and, and [00:15:15] you start then to focus on your existing customers because it’s a much, much high likelihood that they will purchase again.
Erik: Or we also know this, that a lot of people start to click things about things that they already purchased and things like that, so, so we start [00:15:30] to get a big focus on our existing customers and the. The problem then is if we want to increase return on investment, first of all, we have the targeting issue.
Erik: That’s what I talked about right now, we are targeting our most loyal customers, but then we [00:15:45] also have the message, uh, perspective, meaning that what do we say in our ads? And if you want to increase sales and increase click, we know it’s always some sort of discount. It’ll always be the best thing, [00:16:00] especially if it’s targeted to our most interesting customers because they already know about us.
Erik: They know if we have a good product, so they know the value of our product. So if we give a discount to them, it’s like, hallelujah. I’m a loyal customer. I would have [00:16:15] purchased on full price, but now they’re giving me 20% off. Of course I’m gonna click it. I’m gonna click it. I’m gonna stock up for the next year.
Erik: And the ads look great. It looks like, oh my God, we, we, we finally hacked digital marketing. [00:16:30] But the hiccup is, we are not growing. How is it that we are, the ads look great when it comes from return on investment, but we are not selling more. And, and this is then happening to a lot of, of brands finding the, and it’s, it’s usually then [00:16:45] larger brands that the advertising numbers looks great.
Erik: We have high return on investment on all our campaigns, but we are not growing.
Josua: Yeah. It, uh, you touched on so many things that I, that I’ve, I’ve seen myself and, [00:17:00] and one thing that I’ve noticed, uh, maybe this is more true in, in kind of less sophisticated organizations when it comes to marketing, but, but this phenomenon that you described then leads to companies, um, leadership having completely [00:17:15] distorted unrealistic expectations of what marketing can deliver today, tomorrow, this week.
Josua: And, and you start to become afraid of someone saying, Hey, we need to do this broad, you know, we need to reach new customers and. They’re, we’re not gonna see a result in the next quarter, in the next half year, [00:17:30] but we believe that this is a long term right thing to do and it’s gonna pay off. And you become afraid of doing that and you go back to doing the email and the branded search and all those things that you said have supposedly great, great ROI.
Josua: And
Erik: we, we also must be aware that we [00:17:45] came from an era where we did a lot of broad, but we were really bad at optimizing this sort of short term. So a lot of brands have went into this optimizing short term investments, and they’ve seen great [00:18:00] results because they optimized something that were not, uh, that optimized.
Erik: But, uh, it’s like if you are a, if you’re a football team and you have never practiced penalty kicks. Then you start practice penalty kicks [00:18:15] and you’re like, yes. Oh my God, have you seen how many more goals we are doing? Let’s practice penalty kicks. And then eventually you get so good at penalty kicks, so you cannot score even more goals because there are not too many, there are not that many [00:18:30] situations to, to actually score a golden penalty.
Erik: But you’re still practicing penalty kicks and you want to get better and better and better, but you already optimize that part. And I see a lot of brands having done that. They came from a really sort of sloppy digital conversion, [00:18:45] uh, uh, process. And then they optimized that and they got great return on investment because what they were doing was they were optimizing short term sales driven communication.
Erik: And, and now they set the expectation because [00:19:00] of course the marketing team has been the, the heroes, whoa, look, we have. 80%, 200%, 500%, uh, return on investment on this and, and, and CFO top management like, great. [00:19:15] But then we ran out of penalty options, which mean we ran out of optimizing existing or already loyal customers and now we need to do something else.
Erik: And that’s when we end up in a pickle. [00:19:30] So, so to say.
Josua: Yeah, and I think, I feel like just most people aren’t aware of how much work it takes and time it takes to actually create new demand for your brand or service. It’s not easy.
Erik: And it, it, it, [00:19:45] it’s, and, and everybody of course understands this, but when you say it to them saying like, okay, now we have a customers here, they are already interested.
Erik: They’re all approach our product. What do you think it would cost to to make them purchase us again? Then you have the ones who have never listened to us, don’t know [00:20:00] anything about us, and they don’t know exactly why they need this product. How much do you need to, and we, I think a good way is to talk about hot door cold leads, even in marketing saying like, we need to start to, to, uh, talk with the cold leads and it’ll [00:20:15] become more expensive.
Erik: Um, and then people say, well, but we need, we, we, we need to become relevant. Only target the, the relevant ones. Well, then you end up in the, in the wrong part again, because then we start to look at data and then we tend to [00:20:30] end up in that, especially if we are big, because then we already have reached so many in the target market, so they generated so much data.
Erik: So any channel can find that data and optimize. Based on, based on that.
Josua: Yeah. Um, [00:20:45] okay. So you kind of made a good argument, uh, our argument that we need to have, um, we need to have some metrics in place that both marketing and the rest of the organization, the leadership management can agree on that these are the metrics that we’re optimizing [00:21:00] towards, and it’s not just focused on converting existing customers.
Josua: Uh, you mentioned versus thinking about, thinking about it in terms of caught versus cold leads even for marketing. So what are some practical kind of metrics or ways that marketing and the entire organization can [00:21:15] measure the true effectiveness of marketing?
Erik: Okay. Of course, we comes back to sort of the, the, um, it depends, especially on the size of the company, I would say, because [00:21:30] if you’re small, uh, you can actually focus and be much, much more targeted because you’re small.
Erik: If you’re big, you have to, but I usually always like to add sort of total reach. Sort of how many did we actually reach, uh, in total in, [00:21:45] in the relevant market, of course, but how, how, how many, uh, impressions. And of course we could, we could rate different sort of low quality impressions, high quality impressions, but some sort of, how much did this end up with and, and doing some sort of, of, was it 20 million or [00:22:00] was it 200 million?
Erik: Uh, it’s a good benchmark to know if the total customer, uh, so, so we know that we are reaching the whole, whole, uh, whole, whole market. And then of course, trying to see, okay, uh, which target [00:22:15] groups in this market did we reach to high extent, which did we, we didn’t reach it all and start to, to, to think about that.
Erik: And then, and that goes, that marketing goes actually back to sort of market strategy market, uh, sort of how, [00:22:30] how many should we reach, uh, uh, instead of, of sort of the, the, the, um, um. Uh, just return on investment or, or return on how many clicks we, we, [00:22:45] uh, we started to engage. So that’s one part. Uh, then still, I always like brand, brand awareness.
Erik: Um, I’m not that fond of brand liking, uh, because there’s so many people, [00:23:00] uh, that do a lot of, of this middle funnel communication to build brand liking. And I was like, well, a lot of the logic when it comes to brands. Comes. First of all, there’s a sort of [00:23:15] category benchmark. So if, if you’re selling toilet paper, it’s sort of a benchmark where sort of a, a normal distribution of, of this is how much people like toilet paper brands, this is how much people like toothpaste, brands, this is how much they [00:23:30] like clothing brands and, and, and, and there’s a lot of of brands I meet that are over investing in making, becoming a little bit more liked.
Erik: But that is usually not the, their problem. And especially what, what, what you will [00:23:45] see is also that the market communication cannot fix that because it’s a product or service issue. If a brand is unlike, it’s very seldom that market communications are, yeah, we gave you crappy products and our service doesn’t [00:24:00] work, but here’s a cool ad, it will not work.
Erik: So not, don’t focus too much on brand liking, but brand awareness. Uh, especially then if it’s unaided brand awareness and top of mind in different [00:24:15] categories, uh, some sort of, of salience to really understand, do our customers actually think about us when they are entering different types of categories and sort of situations and purchase needs and things like that.
Erik: That is, uh, I usually [00:24:30] find that really helpful when talking about that in an informed way with top management. Then the and, and CO they understand that like, okay, so they think about us. Yeah, and that is good. Everybody understands that it’s good if they think about us, it’s bad if they don’t think about [00:24:45] us and, but, but they think about competitors.
Erik: So I like, uh, uh, really good brand awareness, uh, metrics, but then of course not sort of aided, uh, do you know this brand then than it would be, uh. Not that good. [00:25:00] Uh, a lot of people talk about pricing power as well, uh, especially when we talk about this sort of brand building because the, the performance, the growth, the, the short term that, that is quite easy to find, uh, common, common metrics, but, but pricing [00:25:15] power that is however hard to, to measure.
Erik: But I’m gonna give you a good tip. I’ve learned it from, from, uh, Patson. The, one of the brains behind the short Clon Van Dam Volvo Trucks campaign. He went, [00:25:30] went on to to Sam and now he’s at SKF. And he said, if you measure willingness to pay in your, uh, annual tracking or annual survey, you, you ask, you ask, uh, your customers.
Erik: [00:25:45] Then you go back to that survey and you divide that survey into different groups. First of all, the one who really knows a lot about you and the one who doesn’t know that much about you, and then you see what did they answer When it comes to willingness to pay, then you get a proxy [00:26:00] on how awareness impact, willingness to pay.
Erik: And you could also do the same thing with, for example, the liking variable. So if we have asked people in last year’s survey, how much did you like us, one to seven, or How interested do you think us one to seven. Then [00:26:15] you also have willingness to pay one to seven. And then you can see if we take low interest or low liking and high interest, high liking, and then compare to the willingness to pay permit, we can get a proxy that, oh, if we increase, increase, [00:26:30] increase liking, then we can show that we increase willingness to pay.
Erik: And that is great data because it’s, it’s from our existing customers from last year and. Cus, CEO and CFO loves [00:26:45] this. So I think that is a good way of, of finding, um, the importance of branding, uh, and the value of branding. Uh, and you say like, it’s not, it’s not my, it’s not me telling it, it’s our customers.
Erik: However, then [00:27:00] some marketing departments then say, but what if we don’t find a correlation between awareness, interest and liking and willingness to pay? What if willingness to pay is equal? And I was like, great. Then you don’t have to spend money on [00:27:15] branding, then just say, sell and, and reach new customers.
Erik: And they say something like, it’s, it’s, it’s bad. But of course, sort of branding is not like the end goal. Branding is just a tool. Uh, and it has shown that the tool is [00:27:30] really important to build awareness and to build willingness to pay. But if there’s no correlation. Then skip branding for a while and, and do something else with that money because obviously it doesn’t matter that much people are willing to pay even though they [00:27:45] do not find you interested or, or, and even if they don’t like you, they’re still willing to pay for your product.
Erik: Good. Then focus on, on, on getting the product distributed. Uh, so don’t be that afraid of, of, of finding out that [00:28:00] maybe branding is not of highest important right now.
Josua: Yeah. Like you said, that could actually be, be a really good thing. If you as a marketer understand correctly, your goal and role, uh, how much do you think these correlations between, for instance, brand liking or awareness and [00:28:15] willingness to pay?
Josua: Uh, do they, are they, are there some kind of a general, um, RA ratios that hold true across industries? Uh, or is it, does it vary different, very, very, uh, differently from company and industry? [00:28:30]
Erik: Uh, I, I think it, it depends both on, on the, the difference, uh, of the logic, why you choose a specific brand. And, and it comes to this sort of, uh, what is the normal brand and what’s the quality of that.
Erik: So [00:28:45] for example, if you have a category where like all brands are good, uh, which means that it, then it becomes hard to, because all brands have sort of a hygiene factor, credibility, [00:29:00] meaning that branding will not do a great big difference right now because all brands are equally good. For example, from my perspective, insurance companies like the, the insurance companies I, I evaluate from, they are, from my [00:29:15] perspective, they’re identical.
Erik: It’s like the three, four top brands. However, of course we have the number 5, 6, 7, 8, and nine. Those brands, of course, branding and, and that people feel, find them trustworthy and credibility. That would have a huge [00:29:30] impact on people’s willingness to purchase and willingness to pay because they are not there.
Erik: But for these top four ones, if you are in the top brands you are in, and then it’ll have very low impact, uh, because the logic in the market right now [00:29:45] looks like that. But then of course they could try to change that, trying to, to do and, and become a leading brand. And now they again start to, uh, make customers start to evaluate based on branding in their category.
Erik: So I would [00:30:00] say it depends a lot on the sort of dynamic within a specific category. And that is based on what the different brands are actually doing. If we have a lot of, a lot of, of, uh, stable brands and those are the only stable brands, [00:30:15] then branding didn’t. Pay that much attention. However, what we see now, I would say is, is first of all, we have a lot of low budget brands coming into a lot of different market markets, uh, both, uh, sort of a private owned label and things like that.
Erik: Uh, and [00:30:30] they start to make it a little bit harder for customers sometimes to choose, should I choose the cheapest one? Should I show the cheapest one from across the world? Uh, can I believe, can I trust this brand? And things like that. So, so that makes them, branding becomes a little bit more important. So I would definitely say it [00:30:45] differs a lot, but it’s not only about the type of product, but it’s also about, uh, what are the leading brands in that category?
Erik: Who are they and what are they doing?
Josua: Yeah, that, that makes sense. Uh, one thing you [00:31:00] wrote somewhere that I read was about, you know, not talking instead of talking about quote unquote investing in the brand. Think of marketing, uh, and the kind of dual mandate of, of securing long-term visits versus short-term sales.
Josua: Um, and. I think we maybe already covered, [00:31:15] covered kind of this already in the conversation, but, so basically, could you, do you think it would make sense for marketing to you, you know, you have your marketing metrics, awareness, uh, and so on, but then also finding all, always figuring out a way to connect those [00:31:30] maybe through correlations or, or some other more direct relationship.
Josua: Connect those to hard financial numbers. So obviously when it comes to short-term sales, you know, if you’re doing sales campaigns, you can kind of measure the uplift directly, but it comes to, to long-term, secure and long-term [00:31:45] revenue. It would be about trying to figure out, you know, if we get increased awareness, is it gonna lead to increased penetration or increased willingness to pay?
Josua: Is that kind of how, how you should think about, uh, your, your role as a, as a marketer?
Erik: Uh, [00:32:00] yes. In one level, of course, but then we still have this sort of. That marketing is sort of, uh, like, like a religion. You have, you have to, you have to believe in it. Uh, [00:32:15] because again, all data is based on the past. Uh, meaning that we can measure our branding and the brand value based on historical data.
Erik: But we have to believe that [00:32:30] marketing and, and what we do can change the future. And no, hardly any data can say, say, say to a company and, and like, this will change the future because it’s the future. So we don’t know and it’s hard to change the future. And [00:32:45] so, so, uh, definitely if, if the level one is. Yeah, fix your short term, uh, measurement.
Erik: Uh, then level two is fix your long-term measurement and do not talk about investing in brand, talking, [00:33:00] investing in long-term and, and make some sort of, of, of good, uh, reasoning and rhetoric internally about this long-term impact. Then we have, of course, make them believe because, and I think we’ve lost that, uh, marketers have have lost that.
Erik: And of course it’s a [00:33:15] confident thing, but if you have had so much trouble going from level one to level two, you don’t even know that there’s a level three. But a level three, I would say you have to build a vision and a hypothesis about the future that you want to create. You have to [00:33:30] motivate that this is the way to create that future for our brand, and you cannot base that on data, especially not like this will work because of this.
Erik: It’s like given all the data points, this is what we believe. [00:33:45] Then some, some are, some CMO comes to me, but, but how could I do that? And I said, because you’re the CMO, you know, this industry. And then said, well, but, but I’m, I’m completely new, uh, in this, well then [00:34:00] you are a level one and level two cmo. But when you meet CMOs that been in the industry for a long time and they’ve been in the category for a long time, and they also have developed their creative thinking and really deep understanding, then you get these all level three.[00:34:15]
Erik: This is the vision. And we cannot build that on data. Uh, and I think that when I meet a lot of these brands that sort of have won these awards for like the best campaigns or, or also [00:34:30] for, for like best effects, uh, for long term, it’s about, uh, that they had a vision and that they could actually keep with that vision for a long period of time.
Erik: Because that’s also something that, that takes ’em down. And then you have to convince. [00:34:45] Top management to believe in you and, and, and, and, and believing in marketing. And I think that’s also very important for marketers today.
Josua: Yeah. That, that was actually, that was really good. I’ve never thought about it in those, in terms of those three layers and [00:35:00] how that connects, like the, the believing part with the actual hard numbers.
Josua: And I, I think you’re totally right that there’s a lot of people, especially in the digital marketing space, that believe that everything is, can be data driven and they can succeed very well on the, [00:35:15] like, first level. Maybe a little, you know, quite well on the second level, but they’re not even aware that there’s this third layer.
Josua: Um, and I’m guessing, I mean you can, you can tell me if, if you think I’m wrong, but like this kind of trans, in those cases where [00:35:30] marketing has been able to del deliver kind of transformational growth, it’s always been about belief, having some, a vision that they believed in and stuck with for long term.
Josua: It’s never been about some number that they found. So, so it’s marketing to be really, really impactful. [00:35:45] It needs to be that third level.
Erik: Yeah. And I, I don’t think people even have learned what’s, what’s, what is a world class CMO? Like, do you know how, how nerdy they are? Do you know how good they know their customers?
Erik: So I have [00:36:00] the privilege of meeting a lot of the best CMOs and, and you think like, ah, they’re not data driven. They did this broad branding. No, they know all the data, but they know that that’s not, they know everything about the short term. They also know everything about the long [00:36:15] term, but they know that that’s not enough.
Erik: And you meet them and you think, ah, they’re just doing this broad brand building. Yes, of course there are some people doing broad brand building and don’t have a clue. But the best ones, they know the short term, they know the long term, they know all the data points, but [00:36:30] they know that this will just get us here.
Erik: There is no whole other level of, of marketing game. When you meet them, and it’s not that many, actually, when I started, uh, researching, this is 20 years [00:36:45] ago, I met a really, really, uh, experienced, uh, expert. And he had all these, he said like, when you come to marketing, uh, there’s only 10% that really knows what it’s all about.
Erik: And you will notice within [00:37:00] five minutes. And I think that’s true, that when you meet people, uh, then you can find that they realize that this, that, that sort of the vision, the hypothesis, trying to, to build a role in this world for their brand in different ways, then [00:37:15] you really like it. Yeah. Okay. They know, they know about the third level and why one and two is not enough.
Erik: And I’ve, I have total respect for people entering the marketing world today with focusing on performance ROI and things like that. Of course, they have [00:37:30] not been helped to, to learn about this third level, but I, I. Still I and I, I see today that more and more feels like there’s have to be something more to this.
Erik: And, and there is, and, and, and I think I, we [00:37:45] see a curiosity about that.
Josua: That would be really good. And, and it’s funny you mentioned that ’cause I was, I was thinking about a conversation I had with A-A-C-M-O of a, a food brand here, big food brand here at Finland. And you know, the same thing that you just mentioned.
Josua: I mean, within a couple, [00:38:00] like, you know, he had, he knew the market, every category that they’re in, he knows exactly what’s driving the purchase behavior. He knows how the trends are, what the consumer preferences are, why it makes sense to do this here and this, that, like, it’s, it’s, it’s super impressive.
Erik: [00:38:15] Yeah, yeah. There, there, of course there are sometimes we get this image of, of CMOs to be this sort of, oh, they don’t know. They know exactly what they’re doing. It’s just like there’s a lot of people in marketing that don’t understand the profession or their role is just to, [00:38:30] to, to focus on one specific part, but the cmmo need to, to have that great perspective of, of seeing all the different things.
Josua: Um, yeah. There, there’s such a, on two points that I, I wanted to bring up. Um, uh, one was I, I [00:38:45] read a PWC uh, p WC study that found that a majority of CMOs feel that marketing’s value is not appreciated or understood by, you know, management or key players inside the, the company. Um, I’m guessing, you know, my, my question was, okay, [00:39:00] how can you, have you noticed this issue and how can you correct it for it?
Josua: I’m guessing like, but it being a third level kind of level three marketer, CMO would be the way it solve it, or what would you say?
Erik: We could also turn there around that there are, there are 60% [00:39:15] that has been really bad at explaining the value of marketing to top management. It’s, uh, like, well, it’s your responsibility.
Erik: I sometimes get see most like, yeah, you know, my top management doesn’t understand marketing, so what could I do? Explain it. Isn’t [00:39:30] your, you’re like, it’s like the goalkeeper. Yo no, my, my defense in, in this football, they don’t understand what I’m doing. Well, it’s not their problem. It’s probably yours. So yes, top management have not getting a proper [00:39:45] education in, in marketing, but marketers have also been really bad at explaining the value.
Erik: Marketing actually gives, because it’s been hard and there’s a lot of, of easy, easy arguments that are easier to, easy to understand. [00:40:00] Uh, so some, and, and of course I, I have met top management that is impossible to teach about this because some of them will always get stuck in the numbers. And they think that, uh, the, the [00:40:15] journey ahead is, is to minimize risk and focus on, on past behaviors and, and, and, and, and then of course, you can come to some extent by, by focusing on, on sort of existing numbers, existing data, but you will never convince them.
Erik: [00:40:30] And I think it, it is also a, a sort of a long-term goal for, for cmo, a long-term mission is to, to then, uh, convince them or, or persuade them to, to, to think in that way. But of course, some audiences and some top management is really, really, really hard. And then you probably [00:40:45] have to just move. But yeah. One more thing that I, I I’ve come across, uh, recently is of course, that there of course are companies where their business strategy, meaning like product [00:41:00] pricing and, and this, it’s enough for us to be able to, for company, I sometimes I need to see more like, yeah, you know, they don’t understand branding.
Erik: We need to invest branding. I was like, but. Have you looked at your stock price the last 20 years? It’s not like you need [00:41:15] branding. You are growing and earning money. It’s like you have a money machine in your office and you are talking about that. Oh, they don’t understand branding. And I was like, let’s, let’s oil the money machine.
Erik: And then when that money machine is, is actually not [00:41:30] working, then you can start talking about branding. But, but some, so there are still companies that are really, really, really, really, really, really good at what they’re doing because they have top r and d top salespeople, uh, and things [00:41:45] like that. And, and then maybe you don’t need branding to that extent.
Josua: Yeah. It’s, it is funny. It’s like, um, I, I just, one example to pick on one company is Visa. Whenever I’ve seen some of their ads, I think they’re quite, uh, quite bad. [00:42:00] And then I remember that Visa is like doing 40, 50% operating marketing. And they’re like, they’re so entrenched. They could, they could do whatever, uh, they could do nothing at all.
Josua: Or they could do like the worst advertising and they’re still gonna print money.
Erik: Yeah. [00:42:15]
Josua: Um, so can speak going to, going back to level three, uh, kind of marketing in, in a B2B context, I, I find that like thought leadership is, uh, is a very common objective, uh, at least among marketers. Like it’s [00:42:30] something that really aspirational goal that we have also seems like very few companies feel at least like they’ve been able to reach it.
Josua: Um, what are your thoughts on, on thought leadership? Is it, is it something that is most B2B companies should [00:42:45] be aspiring to reach? And if so, why are so few seemingly being able to reach it?
Erik: Great question. Great question. I actually have a one day course in thought leadership for, for B2B companies. Um, [00:43:00] so, so I thought a lot about this and, and, uh, since I have that, of course, I say that it’s important, uh, because there’s a, a very long term advantage in a lot of different business settings where a thought leadership could, could [00:43:15] improve your, it’s not only about sales, it’s about getting media, getting, uh, acknowledged, but also becoming expert within your field.
Erik: Getting to, in, getting invited to important conversations, getting in, invited to talk about legislation and things like that. So, [00:43:30] so there’s of course, uh, really, really, uh, a lot to, to gain from, from, um, becoming thought leaders. However, I see a gap in the, in the thought leader strategy. Uh, and it’s an [00:43:45] under, um.
Erik: Underestimation of, of how hard it is to create real thought leadership because we have, you have expert the products and you have the r and d, and that’s, I say, we are so good. We are so good in, in, in our field with our [00:44:00] products. And then you have the, the mark on building content, but they’re lacking the piece in, in the middle of these two parts.
Erik: It’s the conceptualization or, or sort of positioning of your [00:44:15] expertise within this world and the budget it takes to create that type of content. Um, uh, using myself as an expert, uh, as an example, uh, I, I, I [00:44:30] did a lot of research and of course I were really, really good in, in advertising creativity, uh, and, and, and how to optimize sort of advertising design and things like that.
Erik: But, but I, uh. So I had the r and d, I had the great product. I was [00:44:45] also a PhD in this. And I was like, but I never got to become thought leader even though I started to write blogs and things like that. I never became thought leaders, but I had the possibility or have the luck opportunity to get a scholarship.
Erik: And I started [00:45:00] after, uh, Kaman had had written thinking Fast and Slow. I wanted to write a book about, uh, how. That sort of, uh, creativity fits into information processing and signal theory and all of these different sort of perspectives. And I started to [00:45:15] read for three years. So I spent reading for three years.
Erik: Then I wrote the book and the best review was, I read the book twice, I think you understand. So I spent three years of my life and I wrote the book that nobody understood. Then I spent two years of my life meeting companies, and then eventually [00:45:30] I wrote the book, which was named then Bang for the Buck, and then I started to get sort of traction, but from my, it took like five years to build, connect my product or, or my research or my expertise in a way with [00:45:45] the, the marketing society or the marketing industry so that they could understand.
Erik: And of course you can do it faster, but I, I think that it needs quite substantial investments to have somebody not only taking the [00:46:00] experts quotes and put them in a LinkedIn. Because then you don’t add anything because, but that’s what I see. Yeah. We interviewed our chief engineer and they said, yeah, we are best at this and this.
Erik: Well, how does that help anybody? You’re just, you’re like selling your product, but you’re calling it thought [00:46:15] leadership, but it’s still just selling your product. You need to think bigger. And there are very few B2B companies that have these thinkers. They have them, but they not giving them that much time to think great [00:46:30] thoughts.
Erik: And they’re also afraid of what will happen when they get those great thoughts and, and how, how to do that. So, so I think that definitely become thought leaders, but it requires investments [00:46:45] beyond the marketing budget. Beyond, because sometimes I feel like yeah, we do, we, we, we, we use AI and, and some experts and then we produce a report and then we use the budget to spread the report.
Erik: However. First of all, you need a lot of money [00:47:00] to build a great report. Then you use money to spread it. And I think, uh, I, people start, they, they miss this part in the middle and or under investing in it. So they’re just spreading crappy or semi-good [00:47:15] knowledge, and then they will not become thought leaders because no, not, there are not that many new thoughts and, and not that much leadership in it.
Josua: So it’s, yeah, it’s a strategy for achieving thought leadership that lacks both thought and leadership. So it’s not, it’s [00:47:30] bound to fail. Yeah. It’s, yeah. We
Erik: can become thought leaders now because we have ai. Yeah. So, so that’s sort of the, the, the quickest way away from thought leaders. Because then it’s, it’s not thoughts, it’s sort of knowledge.
Erik: Uh, and, and it’s not [00:47:45] leading because it’s, it’s already produced. So a lot of people saying like, AI go hand in hand with thought leadership. I would say no AI go hand in hand with destroying your perce. The perception of thought leadership, if it’s not of course, uh, [00:48:00] handed correctly. Um, so I think, um, uh, and, and therefore I would, as a B2B brand, I would be a little bit sort of, um, skeptical about saying that we are going to be thought leaders, [00:48:15] uh, because then you are not taking in the full, the full, um.
Erik: Um, concept, I would say because thoughts are based, it, it, it comes from a human that has spent a lot of time [00:48:30] thinking about something and those thoughts are, are usually quite interesting, provocative. They are new, they’re breaking new grounds and then they can become a leader. It’s, it’s, it’s not about content marketing.
Erik: Of course we can say we are going to be a [00:48:45] content engine that produce a lot of content, so we are, but it’s not thoughters. Then of course you are a content master house or something like that, and that’s fine. But yeah,
Josua: I, no, to your point [00:49:00] about time, I mean, I, I was just thinking because I, I, you know, a couple of companies I’ve kind of followed and, and, and their journey of achieving thought leadership in their industries and it’s, it’s always taken a lot of time.
Josua: Yeah. A lot of time to, to arrive at these [00:49:15] insights that now are seem like, okay, you know, it’s fairly. It can almost be obvious, but it takes a lot of time to develop.
Erik: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, uh, the human brain is, is, is really great, but it’s not fast
Josua: for sure. [00:49:30] Yeah,
Erik: yeah, yeah. So, so I, I know how long it took for me to, to, to find some of the most sort of obvious insights.
Erik: Yeah. It took a couple of years. Um, and it’s a really long term, term, term [00:49:45] strategy.
Josua: And do you find that thought leadership has to be, like you mentioned, it has to be, come from a person. It can’t just be.
Erik: Uh, or a group of people. I think, of course, it’s, it’s hard to build it into a company. Um, I, I [00:50:00] was thinking a little bit about, uh, that we shouldn’t have the word thought, uh, thought leadership, but maybe that you become a little bit of a, that it’s more of a, uh, a, a sort of a capability, uh, sort of a, instead of a sort of, now we are saying like, you are either [00:50:15] thought leader or not, but of course we can use it, that we strive to become a little bit more of a thought leader in different parts and, and that of course, you can build into your corporate culture.
Erik: So that we have a culture to become more thought leader ish, [00:50:30] but we are not thought leaders because a thought leader, I would say that it’s usually have to have a person that has sort of discussed or thought about something for a very, very long time and taking in a lot of information. But of course we can become more thought leaders in what we’re doing.
Erik: [00:50:45] However, then we really need to understand what that is. And usually when I meet companies that say we are going to become a little bit more thought leaders, they don’t understand what that means because they, they usually to become a more thought leaders, you have to have [00:51:00] an opinion and you may have to make a stand or else it’s not a thought.
Erik: It’s just like facts. And a lot of the brands that wants to become thought leaders is that they want to be perceived as smart and wise, but they don’t want to make any, any sort of, we believe in [00:51:15] this or we don’t do this. And then it’s really hard. So, so. Equal oath as I help brands to become thought leaders.
Erik: Also, some brands say like, thank you, but we thought content marketing, we could call that thought leaders, but actually [00:51:30] it’s not thought leadership. We are just going to work with content marketing.
Josua: No, I think, um, that, that sounds really, really smart. I mean, figuring out what, what it is that you actually are trying to achieve.
Josua: And sometimes it may make sense that this is not what we want. [00:51:45]
Erik: Yeah. And, and, and, and sometimes, and, and I think that’s with a lot of different concepts that you, it, it becomes so hard to succeed in a lot of different concepts and also in different channels. So you have to say, okay, we will not be able to succeed [00:52:00] when it comes to this.
Erik: So for example, I realized a long time ago that I wouldn’t be able to succeed on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram or TikTok. So I said, okay, so as a marketer, there are of course good channels, but I’m not good at it. [00:52:15] I don’t have the time, I don’t have the capacity to, to solve, so, so let’s move away from those channels.
Erik: And always when I have somebody new coming to me and say, oh Eric, you’re an expert. You are working with marketing levels, you are, e-learning company should be on Facebook, Instagram, and say like, [00:52:30] yes, but we are not good enough yet, so we cannot do it. And I think a lot of brands need to also see the, the limitations instead of only seeing the potential or else you add another channel and you add mediocre content there and then you, [00:52:45] and you don’t see the effect and then you get stuck with all of these sort of semi-good channels instead of saying like, this channel here with this concept, this we can succeed in.
Erik: And, and then let’s,
Josua: well, so speaking of [00:53:00] channels, I mean I think super good point that you need to figure out what are your, where can you really be? Excellent.
Erik: Yeah.
Josua: Um, and then picking channels based on that. But, uh, a apart from that, as you’re kind of, uh, looking at the, the marketing landscape today, is there any [00:53:15] channel or any place that you think is like massively underpriced or massively overpriced?
Josua: Uh, any, any kind of, you know, let’s say you’re, you’re a company that, that doesn’t really, you’re talking to a company that doesn’t really know if they have any natural strength to doing a podcast [00:53:30] or doing TikTok or whatever. Um, any kind of place in general that you’d recommend companies to look?
Erik: No, so I, I, I usually say you are not in the wrong channel.
Erik: You’re just not doing enough good communication [00:53:45] in that channel. So, so I, I think that’s the goal to there, there’s no channel that solves a bad product. We actually did this, uh, seminar. The workshop, this was like 10 years ago, but it had exact like that [00:54:00] question, so which are the best channels? And then you invited like the 10 biggest advertisers.
Erik: Uh, and they were like, oh, now we’re going to get sort of the, the magic formula. And it started, it was so funny there until like three hours and it [00:54:15] started off like one saying like, okay, so first of all we can say that uh, Instagram sucks. And then another one in the same, like one second about no, Instagram is the top channel.
Erik: And we’re like, we realized within [00:54:30] five minutes that it would never work. And we had like the biggest, most successful brands and we are going to find their formula. It took five minutes and it was like, like this. Everybody had completely different, uh, insights. Uh, and [00:54:45] ideas on what was a good channel. So it’s, it really comes down to what could you do really, really, really well, and which channel do you like so much?
Erik: And, and which way you can reach a lot of your audience so that you can continue [00:55:00] for long period of time. There’s no customers feeling like, oh my God, uh, why are they not in this channel? As long as you reach your customers and you can reach them in a lot of customers. Uh, but you have to be really good at, in each channel.
Erik: So if you do email, do [00:55:15] email really, really good. If you’re doing social, do social really, really good. If you don’t outdoor advertising, do outdoor advertising. Really, really good. The biggest challenge is that you have five different channels and everything is mediocre.
Josua: Yeah, for [00:55:30] sure. Wow. I I think that’s completely, completely right.
Josua: Um, we’re almost out of time here, so I figured I’d, you know, kind of end things by asking a few personal questions. Yeah. And number one, I mean, given that you’ve, you’ve been, you have extensive experience and you’re reading a lot, you’re learning a lot, and you’re [00:55:45] constantly trying to evolve your kind of thinking and, and find new insights.
Josua: Is there any marketing belief that you used to hold maybe for a long time, but you’ve recently changed your mind about,
Erik: so, so two [00:56:00] things. I, I did a big, um, what I call the effect study here in Sweden where we worked with, with, uh, 10 different brands and we looked at their brand assets. And I, I, before that I thought that slogans and payoffs actually were good to connect to the brand, but [00:56:15] nobody remembered them. We tested like 30 to 40 slogans and it was like one, and it’s a good idea because then you have some people, no, no slogans are really good.
Erik: And I say, okay, mention five that you know about. And they’re, yeah, you know, just do it. And then I say, [00:56:30] yes, name one more. And people are like, and it’s, uh, uh. Yeah, just do it. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, and even people working in advertising aism with brand, they cannot mention five [00:56:45] slogans. Of course there are some slogan nerds that can’t, but, so that really sort of changed my mind saying like, okay, so, so, so messages connected to a brand is not for market communication.
Erik: Of course, you can have it as a values internally to motivate your organization. But that really sort of [00:57:00] changed my recommendations. Uh, another one, and I wanted to, to bring this up, when we talked about this level one, level two, level three, and it’s signal value that you, that the brand signal that they are feeling good, [00:57:15] that they’re signaling, that they are cool, they’re signaling that they are feeling confident and that things goes good.
Erik: Sometimes we miss that part. And, and I, I remember, because I wrote a lot about it in my thesis and a couple of days ago people [00:57:30] talked about why outdoor advertising isn’t performing well when you do this sort of attribution models. And I was like, yeah, it’s because how you invest and you don’t have granular data.
Erik: But, but it’s also about, this ads is about signaling that like, [00:57:45] we really believe in this product and we, we are a really cool brand. And you just show that you believe in it. And, and, and for that outdoors is really great, but how do we measure that, I guess how do we measure signaling value? And we come into this sort of, which we talked about a lot 15 years ago, that [00:58:00] the, the, the challenge of measuring this sort of intangible coolness or intangible quality that you feel brands, some brands have.
Erik: Like, [00:58:15] um, and, and, and I really think a lot about that today, that, uh, the recommendations should only be about sort of information processing and building attitude. It’s about what does, what does this signal about us? Uh, and I missed that a [00:58:30] little bit. I talked a lot about this when I lectured 15 years ago about, but I, I also, I melt missed this little bit today.
Josua: Well, maybe it’s coming back. We’ll see. But, uh, so slogans and signaling, that’s, uh, that’s really good. I think it’s a, I mean, it’s a, [00:58:45] it’s a great, probably sign that to be able to kinda reevaluate long held beliefs and, and realize like, oh, okay, I, I, maybe I didn’t emphasize that enough, or maybe I thought this was more important than it actually is.
Josua: Um, okay. Um, do you have any [00:59:00] contrarian beliefs? So something you believe about marketing or growth or, you know, maybe business in general that most of your peers would probably not agree with?
Erik: What to include in marketing. Could be, could be sort of, [00:59:15] because I have a lot of peers or colleagues or experts at talking about that.
Erik: Marketers have to go back to the four p, uh, price product, uh, place and distribution and, and market communication, which they talked about promotion, but, [00:59:30] but there’s so many companies where marketing will only be branding in Marco and, and maybe customer experience. It will not be part of product development.
Erik: It will not be part of pricing strategy. It will. So I, I, I have a [00:59:45] more sort of a, uh, a more progra like, well, well, if we lose pricing and product in place, it’s, it doesn’t matter that much. Still branding and, and Marco and, and customer experience, it’s quite a [01:00:00] big part. So, so let’s do not, uh, argue about that.
Erik: Marketing has lost. Product price and, and, and place them. Uh, but, uh, some people hate me, uh, since, uh, I, I, they [01:00:15] say I diminish marketing. I just like, but, but in some companies it will be on, on sort of business areas, business units, it will be top management, it will be sort of pricing experts. It’s will be sales responsible.
Erik: So, so I have a little bit more of a, of [01:00:30] a relaxed attitude towards what, what to include in marketing.
Josua: Yeah, I, I get that. I, I also can see how it would upset, offend some of that Puritan. Yeah. Okay. Final question. Um, what’s one piece of advice that you would give [01:00:45] someone who’s maybe starting out in marketing, uh, starting out their careers right now, or someone who’s, you know, maybe they’ve got a couple years, but really looking to, to develop, maybe take a couple of steps forward on that kind of ladder of Yeah.[01:01:00]
Josua: Becoming, let’s say, you know, someone who’s, since you mentioned it, like world class CMOs, like someone who is. Starting out the career or in the middle of the career. But the goal is world class CMO.
Erik: Uh, find the CMOs that are like [01:01:15] 50, 60 years old and, and, and, and talk and learn what they listen and, and how they work because it’s not that they understand digital, but they understand brand building.
Erik: And if they have been CMOs for that long time, [01:01:30] they know a lot of things that you didn’t learn. And I feel a lot of people, young people come to me and ask me, can you learn me more about growth funnels? Can you learn me more about performance? Can you learn me more about AB testing? I was like, but what you really need is [01:01:45] to know sort of the fundamentals, which, which everybody, uh, these CMOs know, so, so there are so much experience that you can learn from finding these [01:02:00] sea os There are like 50, 60 and did this in the nineties.
Erik: When we had these great emotional campaigns and, and media looked in different ways, and I’ve always done this, uh, when I meet, when I want to learn something, I always say, hi, I’m [01:02:15] gonna treat you for a great lunch because, uh, first of all, lunch, you have time to sit down. And if you say Great lunch, people, ah, yeah.
Erik: And it doesn’t cost that much. It’s not like a dinner, which can cost a lot, but a great lunch, you can still get a table at a great restaurant because [01:02:30] people in their fifties or sixties and seventies, they don’t want to eat cheap. They love good restaurants. So, but say like, treat them for lunch and then go for a, a lunch restaurant that costs like 20, 30, 40 euros for lunch close [01:02:45] by, they will never turn you down because at least they get so, so treat people for lunch and start asking with them and say like, okay, what did you learn?
Erik: I think that is a great way for young people to learn. And, and I learned so much from that. I, I actually invited [01:03:00] CEOs from advertising agencies and I learned so much. And I also started with a lot of researchers and things like that. And, and people still need to eat lunch, so it doesn’t take that much time from their busy calendars.
Josua: I, I think that’s actually, that’s really, really [01:03:15] good advice and most people are not gonna take it listening to this if they’re young, but someone is hopefully, and I think they’ll be surprised also by the also
Erik: be, be also be like, this is an older person that had a great career. Be humble. So they might [01:03:30] console three times, but you will get the land the fourth time and maybe sometimes you’ll get a lunch three months from now.
Erik: But you get in the schedule and then you will get a lunch eventually. And don’t be pushy. I, I, uh, I ask one or two [01:03:45] times and things like that and if they not willing, you cannot convince them. Uh, so, so, so ask a lot of people and ask. Also don’t ask the, the ones being at the coolest brands, um, because they’re [01:04:00] probably busy, ask different people, but long experience.
Josua: That’s really good advice. Yeah. Eric, thank you so much for coming on. It’s, uh, it’s been a pleasure talking to you again for people who wanna follow you, what you’re doing. Is it linked in the best place? Yeah. And, uh, can you [01:04:15] briefly kind of, what, what do you, what exciting things are you working on right now and is there anything in the future coming down the, the pipeline?
Erik: Yeah, so I’m working a lot about, uh, attention still, sort of digital, uh, digital advertising, how to solve the, sort of the branding challenge with digital [01:04:30] advertising. So, so that’s what I work a lot on. Then I work a lot on education and e-learning competence, so I, I build my own e-learning company, marketing levels, and we have a lot of interesting things there in the pipeline to get, uh, um, out [01:04:45] sort of a broader knowledge on marketing.
Erik: Uh, not depend, depending on, not depending on which role you’re in, but if you have a role, how can you, how can you sort of build your career in marketing? So, so follow me on LinkedIn. I will post there both [01:05:00] my research and if you write to me LinkedIn, uh, I always answer it. Maybe it’s not the same day, but, but I will answer eventually.
Erik: And, and they also find, uh, information about the education and programs and things like that. [01:05:15]
Josua: Okay, perfect. We’re gonna include those in the show notes. Like I said, thank you so much for coming on. Best of luck with everything that you got, uh, going on this year.
Erik: Thank you for listening everybody, and have a great [01:05:30] spring.