An Interview With "Built to Suck" Author Joseph Jaffe

ANA group executive vice president Bill Duggan recently interviewed Jaffe to get a sneak peek into the wisdom he39ll be imparting at the conferenceBill Duggan A fundamental premise in your book is that size ultimately leads to the downfall of most corporations because size is no longer a growth enabler but instead is a growth inhibitor You call it quotdeath by suckagequot Please explainJoe Jaffe The old model of big business is broken The very thing that led to the growth of the multinational or bluechip brand namely scale amp8212 economies of scale and efficiencies of scale amp8212 has been replaced with costcutting risk aversion political hierarchies and silos which create a competitive disadvantage relative to a technologyinfused slew of startups and scaleupsDuggan You also question the enduring longevity of advertisingamp160 What forms of advertising can work best today in your opinionJaffe Rule number one If given the choice 100 out of 100 people would choose to ignore avoid or obliterate advertising Rule number two Advertising isn39t going away but please refer to rule number oneI wrote about outdated roles for advertising in my first book Life After the 30Second Spot in 2004 informing persuading and reminding We haven39t really made much progress since The 30second cash cow is deathly ill and begging either to be put out of its misery or to inject the power of digital in terms of better targeting better functionality and better measurement And oh yes creativity sucks amp8230 so we need to fix that too For what it39s worth I39m incredibly excited about radio and outofhome and predict massive growth in both of these channelsDuggan You identify the importance of four pillars as ways to prevent or at least slow down the demise of the corporation Those four pillars are digital disruption winning the talent war customer obsession and corporate citizenship Is one of these pillars more important than the othersJaffe Each pillar may sound familiar but the problem is that most companies are just paying lip service and looking at them incredibly superficially All four pillars are beyond important but one is mandatory and that is customer obsession Brands that continue to drink from the swill that is acquisition marketing will eventually be met with a dry pipeline and a painful death Underdeliver at this pillar at your perilI want brands to take away two things with this particular pillar First no more customer service customer experience or even customercentricity you need to be obsessed Just ask Jeff Bezos Second this pillar can easily be measured and benchmarked and it begins with a transparent audit and introspection of the chasm that exists between how much money you make from acquisition amp8212 firsttime buyers equal strangers switchers equal prostitutes amp8212 versus retention amp8212 advocates zealots promoters amp8212 compared with how much money you spend on both buckets respectivelyDuggan Digital now represents more than half of all ad spending You write that the role of digital in an organization needs to provide an unfair advantageamp160Please elaborate Jaffe Imagine you could go back in time to around the turn of the century and were contemplating quottesting and learningquot with this fringe gimmick called ecommerce Imagine selling stuff online to latenight bathrobewearing shoppers That39s what I39m talking about Digital changes everything It did then it does now and it will in the future Yes there are far more toys and shiny objects now Some are real and some are fake Don39t be fooled by fads Instead focus on one single question Are you changing the game If not you39re just another lemming waiting to fall off the cliffDuggan You write that the single contributor to corporate decay is the lack of talentcentricity and that companies will live and die based on how they attract and retain talent What are some key talent retention strategies Jaffe There are many but the one I39ll focus on in this interview is the ability to turn employees into entrepreneurs Harness their incredible entrepreneurial talents and potential Empower them to pursue their passions Instead of controlling litigating or repressing them fund them Liberate them Give them the freedom to develop ideas that could be gamechangers for the company and the brand Yes even on company timeDuggan What do corporations need to do to be good citizens and is corporate citizenship the same as brand purpose or something different Jaffe Companies talk about corporate social responsibility or purpose marketing but it39s just PR spin They are bad actors amp8212 irresponsible denizens that turn a blind eye as the planet continues to spin out of control the Amazon burns and humans suffer Step up Be a corporate citizen To do good you have to be good And one more thing Any company that has to discover its purpose is beyond help These companies forgot their purpose amp8230 they need to rediscover their purpose Go back to the beginning amp8212 to day oneClick the social buttons to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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An Interview With "Built to Suck" Author Joseph Jaffe

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Bill Duggan

We Are the Outliers - By Jack Myers

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An Interview With "Built to Suck" Author Joseph Jaffe

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