Mellor&Smith

Clean your toilets. Good old fashioned customer service beats innovative frothy-ness. Every single time. When it comes to marketing. Rather than obsessing over the new, how about you obsess over the now. Because, shock horror, the public aren't nearly as excited about the future as you are. Underdogs can't outspend the largest brand in the category, so they have to do some good ol' fashioned thinking. Which is often as basic as cleaning your toilets, training your staff properly and not sending emails from 'donotreply' inboxes.   Underdog brands, need Underdog thinking. - - - #marketing #Underdogs cc: Mellor&Smith

Snooker is the king of sports. Fact. And what can Underdogs learn from The Rocket? If you want to be the best 'You've got to just smother yourself in the mustard and go deep within it, hurt and suffer... you have to choose how bad you want it'. Ronnie 'The Rocket' O'Sullivan. What does that mean for Underdogs? The only way for Underdogs to beat the competition is to to out-think them. They must do the thing the biggest brands can't, won't or daren't. Underdogs have to smother themselves in the mustard, because the biggest brands sure as shizzer won't. And remember, French Dijon is always best. Underdog brands, need Underdog thinking. - - - #Marketing #Underdogs cc: Mellor&Smith

Averages are great, until they're not. 'If your head's in the oven and your feet are in the freezer, on average your temperature is fine. But you’re dead' Averages make stuff easier to understand, they boil down big chunks of data into something digestible. Which is lovely, but it's also the problem. Because getting Underdog brands noticed is difficult. You’ve got to want to do the hard yards, you’ve got to fancy it. Like proper fancy it. And that means being arsed enough to think. Worse case scenario for averages is they give you the wrong answer completely. Best case scenario for averages is they give you something meaninglessly generic (but it's easy to digest). So redacting stuff down to averages, is often the opposite to critical-thinking. The odds are stacked against Underdogs. The biggest brands in each category have all the advantages by being mahooosive. So the only way you’re going to beat the large brands is by out-thinking them. And you don’t out-think them with average. Underdog brands, need Underdog thinking. - - - H/T to the delicious 🍣 Rob Estreitinho, who reminded me of the averages quote a while ago. Lovely jubbly. #marketing #Underdog cc: Mellor&Smith

There’s a gazillion business books written about the classic bell curve graph. The one that EVERY management consultant gets proper frothy about. Instead the brilliant Wiemer Snijders says ‘every brands customer base is shaped like a banana’. Because your customer base is choca-bloc with light buyers. Yep, even you at the back, who thinks their brand is special and different. 'Woaaah, light buyers?? Our customers luuuurve us mate. They buy us all the time'. No, they don't. A brands most fervent and frequent buyers account for a small fraction of the total revenue over the year. And the majority of a brands buyers are super flakey, meaning they buy once or twice a year. Underdogs should accept the uncomfortable truth; the vast majority of your customer base is light. And you'll instinctively concentrate every customer acquisition effort on attracting more light people. Rather than staying in your comfort zone. It ain't bananas mate. Underdog brands, need Underdog thinking. - - - #marketing #Underdog cc: Mellor&Smith

Moonwalking into the future? Yep all brands are at it. Even the super cool ones on the back seat. Why oh why, does innovation so rarely succeed? You know the kind of innovation I'm talking about, those leaps into the unknown that make people proper nervous. For consumer goods it's often new product development, in technology it's often new gear like ChatGPT. And in the pin-stripped world of finance it's stuff like crypto.    Yeah, come at me GPT bro's. Anyway, you get my drift. The odds are stacked against Underdogs, even established brands struggle to get new products out into the world. Innovation is filthy gorgeous, but you know what's really powerful... nostalgia. Underdog brands, need Underdog thinking. - - - #marketing #Underdog cc: Mellor&Smith

Be unforgettable throughout the year rather than ignored for the same 3 days each year. You're not Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes or even Taylor Swift.   Most people do stuff just because everyone else is doing it. If you asked the VP of Marketing 'Why are we attending the XYZ tradeshow?' They'd say 'Cos loads of our target audience are attending, innit bruv'. All marketers say innit bruv to sound groovy and totally hip. The smarter question is 'how many competitors justify it in exactly the same way?' - - - #marketing #Underdog cc: Mellor&Smith

High heels and a sparkly dress. It happens in every category, in every country, all the flipping time. And a gazzilion brands wonder why they're ignored. It's because most brands adopt the 'category norms'. They corral around them. Why? Tonnes of reasons I'm sure, but mostly it's because it's easier and less exposing. And of course if you're the biggest brand in a category, the category norms are great for you. In fact they help re-enforce your mahoosive-ness. But research from the Effies and Ipsos shows brands who avoid category norms have a 21% increase in brand retention. People would sell their Grandma for a 21% increase... but daren't defy the category norms. Weird, no? What does it mean for Underdogs? You need to out-think the competition, because being a slightly different shade of beige in the category is reducing how much you're remembered. So slip into something you wouldn't normally wear... and not just on a Saturday night. Underdog brands, need Underdog thinking. - - - #marketing #Underdog cc: Mellor&Smith

Get proper kinky in the boardroom at 3pm With Susan and Hugo from the c-suite. And no, not with your gimp mask. Instead allow for illogical kinks. The kind of unplanned kinks, that shouldn't make sense... but actually make sense in a weird way. Why should you bother? Because the public are irrational, illogical and weird. Brands that are super-polished, the ones who are a no-brainer... they're more likely to be ignored compared to the slightly weird, illogical, kinky option. The public, like to be surprised and tickled. So keep those happy accidents. And one of the most famous accidents is the Dulux dog. In 1961, Dulux were shooting a new Ad, it was a perfectly quaint scene, wholesome, with some children playing. But during the shoot, the Art Director’s English Sheepdog, Dash, kept running onto set to play with the kids. Getting into all sorts of mischief. Argh. But when the team looked at the shots the next day, the ones with Dash were adorable. And the children were swiftly ditched in favour of Dash. What can Underdogs learn from this? Firstly, children are expendable, ditch them as soon as they become a burden But more importantly, allow for illogical kinks. Don’t iron everything out. If it makes you smile, giggle or laugh out loud then the public will probably do the same. Underdog brands, need Underdog thinking. - - - #marketing #Underdog cc: Mellor&Smith

Strategic wandering... Attribution is an accountants wet dream, but nothing game-changing ever came from being sat at your desk day after day. Nope. Weirdly, the further you are from your desk, the better your thinking. Strategic wandering... you could be out for a walk, in the pub or in the throes of passion with the wife. Wherever your happy place is... make sure you're there more often. As the fabulous Drayton Bird often says 'happy hens lay more eggs'. Getting outside, being given the freedom to think and not having to attribute every flipping minute to a timesheet make people happier. Shock horror. What can Underdogs change today? So much of the pressure to perform day-to-day comes from the arm-wrestles in budget planning. So one of the biggest advantages Underdogs can give themselves is setting the right budget. Gareth Turner at Big Black Door told me the framework he used while he was at Weetabix. The 70/20/10 framework. It can be used for budgeting, allocation of resources or even how you spend your time. It's more of a mindset, than just a budgeting tool. Once a year, make the decision to experiment throughout the year with 10% of your budget, time, resource. Allow your best people to wander, and they'll find the treasure. - - - #marketing #Underdog cc: Mellor&Smith

Grey, vanilla-ry, good taste. Do you know who has the worst taste? It's the people who say they have 'good taste'. The fabulous Mary Quant said 'good taste is death, vulgarity is life'. And of course, she was right. In fact Quant was right about most things. For Underdogs it's flipping difficult to compete with the biggest brands in their category, because being mahooosive is such a huge and enduring advantage. So the way to beat them is unlikely to be in 'good taste'. Becuase human are totes irrationale... it's actually the opposite to 'good taste'. The route to beating the biggest brands in your category is by being distinctive. And sometimes you just need to jab the public with something funny, dirty and vulgar. Underdog brands, need Underdog thinking. - - - #marketing #Underdog cc: Mellor&Smith