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Mini MBA. How are you? Welcome. We're on QA session five. We're close to the finale. So for today's session, uh, it's me, by the way. I've just taken my specs off because it's hot and I'm very close to the computer. Ha ha. I look a lot like Andy Burnham. Have you noticed? I've soon to be new Prime Minister in the UK. It's not a good thing. Um, what was I gonna say? Um uh welcome to your final QA. I'm in London, flew in yesterday from Australia, uh, deeply hungover and jet lagged. It's a winning combination. Uh I will drive to France this evening to be to meet Byron Sharp in his hotel lair, uh, in his in his in his lair in in Nice, and then I will go on to Cannes, Festival de Marketing, um, and then go to Switzerland to work for a client. So, yeah, it's summertime in England, it's kind of good. So, we've got about half an hour of questions I want to get through, and then I want to talk about what happens in the exciting couple of weeks ahead. Yeah, because we're reaching our kind of de nuor. Now, hang on. I you know what I'm gonna do here, I'm gonna get that big boy up there so we can see more of your good questions. There. That's what I want. Kimberly, hi Mark. Any tips for B2B pricing research, especially in a complex mix of solutions selling and enterprise solutions where pricing is not transparent, isn't open, isn't openly communicated with the market. Also, our business has a history talking about willingness to pay while giving away products as part of sales trials. Loving how practical the course is. Yeah, I've worked in this area, Kim. I did a very famous paper actually with a bunch of academics on uh it freightliner in Portland, Oregon, looking at how a B2B company sets pricing. And it was the most frightening thing I've ever seen in terms of complexity and parts and everything else. Um, so I don't, but that was it. I don't have a lot of experience in B2B pricing. Um, where would I send you? The work of Professor Mark Bergen, B-E-R-G-E-N from the University of Minnesota, is the guide I study. He's done enormous work in this in that area. It's a it's not my specialty, but Bergen has it all. Oli Arrison, what are the takeaways and best practice on effective distribution in B2B marketing environments? It's an environment that involves selling complex services and products to a cautious buyer and is characterized by long sales cycles and deep relationships. Yeah, look, I struggle with B2B distribution because it the literature ends up being kind of sales force assignments and it's very technical and and not really distribution. Um, I mean, it it comes down to how you allocate sales. I'll tell you my only, and and again, it's not my specialty. When I've worked in B2B environments, the the distribution and and and sales point has been handled by the sales team, which I've never had access to. Um the one thing I would say is um if it comes to Salesforce allocation, I've never seen better progress ever made in B2B than doing a really good account-based firm segmentation and then assigning and structuring the Salesforce and the distribution channels. So I think segmentation is so important in B2B, it almost comes before everything else. But that's that's all I got, Ollie. I know I I'm not an expert in this area. Nicola, this might be one of the silliest questions. Go for it, Nicola. But I think it's worth asking. All right, go on then. In the three-stage method, you mentioned Kite's research on optimal ad spend as a percentage of revenue. My question is, does the 10% figure cover all costs, agency fees, production, and so on, or does it refer strictly to media spend? My understanding from Wonderful Grace Kite's work is it covers only the working capital of media. And that wasn't a silly question. Ashwin, how has Apple managed to maintain their prices with an iron fist? Well, I have heard that, Ashwin, Apple sells its computers and phones and other things to its retail partners for the same price that they sell it to you for. So that's how Apple have done it. They don't leave any margin between what they sell it to you for to what you sell it for, which prompts another question. I hear, I hear Ashwin. Why would it why would any company distribute a product that there's no margin in? And the answer is because of the traffic, and the answer is because of the peripherals. So if you if you're selling uh a MacBook, you're attracting a lot of people into the store. But more importantly, all the peripherals of bags and m mice, m mouse, mouses, um, and and cabling and all that are hugely profitable. And so that's how the game has been played. Uh Angela, please can you tell us more about the example? I will at the end of this QA, Angela. Burim, borim, borim, steady on borim. I hope it's okay. My question risks not directly related to this module. That's okay, Burium. You could have cut a few words out of it, but it's fine what you ask about. I recall in module five you mentioned that positioning is part of strategy and cannot be included as an added P. I mean, it's not a tactical thing. I like the solid argument you gave on why it's not another P. But I wonder if the advent of social media have evolved to such a sophisticated level where the creative, if done well, is the tool that does the targeting for you. Yeah, yeah, very good. Meaning that if we were to rely on the algorithm's ability to take signals from audiences and then it knows who to target, a creative that is well designed to speak to a woman with X problem is likely to give the machine the signals that it likes to add. This is all good, Borim, but let me jump in. If the purpose of marketing is just advertising, you're right. We could go straight to Meta and go, do it all for us. Yeah? Tell me my target, build my position. But my point to you throughout the course has been the promotional P is 8% of the game. We need targeting to design the product, to optimize the pricing, to decide on distribution. Do you see what I mean? Meta can't do that. Does that make sense? So that's why I'm saying to you, and I'm abbreviating it, I apologize. Uh, no. Burim's back for more though. Silly me. You came at me again, Burim. I like how you did that. This communication module had me thinking about module six objectives. In that module, you mentioned a type of budget management that is ineffective or not well considered, which is advertising ratios. Yeah, I mean, like it's the 95% of companies do it. It doesn't make a lot of sense. How do you see this relate to marketing efficiency ratios? Is this just another fancy take on the same concept? After looking at module nine, I'm finding it hard to figure out how small player businesses are able to justify enough of a budget to make any of these activities possible. ROI is something I'm being held responsible for, but marketing objectives look at awareness type of goals and consideration goals. It's difficult to get that to funnel down to sales. It's true, but it's not impossible, Borim. If you get chance, come and do brand management. We do all these calculations as part of the budget plan. But otherwise, you can still funnel it down. It's not easy, you're right. Anyway, what were you saying? Would not be able to stay within the 10% of revenue rule, especially with paid ads can only muster a 200% ROAS. I find myself asking, what it what are your thoughts on this 10% of revenue rule and what you think of Mare? What is a good marketing efficiency ratio? My understanding is three could be argued to be over investing and a nine and above might not mean investing enough. How do you see this? I don't know the last bit. I think it's two variants. I do think Grace Kite makes a good point. When you look at all the different research, if you can get five to 10% of your rebs back into comms, you're probably in the sweet spot. And if you really can't do anything else, use that as the basis for your arguments. I mean, it's very broad, but it's better than nothing. Or an A, I'm I'm reading attempts to update the 4Ps are embarrassing. They've endured for a reason and noticed it referenced a B2B framework. They've produced the now semi-famous save model. Do you have any insights or examples on the save model, or more broadly from a B2B perspective, around how it compares or complements the traditional four Ps? Is there a way for us to access the full article? Uh, you'd have to look it up. It's in the HBR and it's pretty well cited. So you'll find it quickly, Renee. The only caveat is one of the authors, Jonathan, reached out to me and said, you know what? I just think we wouldn't have written it if we'd have appreciated how good the four P's were when we started, which I thought was a very cool thing to say. But yeah, you can find it, it's in the HBR. It's called the Save Model. Uh, it's pretty easy to access. It'll cost you like $8. Renee again. Another question from me. In the funnel module, you mentioned identifying gaps throughout the funnel. One of the key topics right now is retention and churn, especially as you said, that acquiring a new customer is often much more expensive than retaining an existing one. True. Are there any additional tactics frameworks you could share around this stage of the funnel? I'd be interested to see how you approach improving retention and reducing churn. Oh, that's a big question, Renee. Um the one answer I'll give you is we talked about these bridge metrics. If you include retention in your funnel, and I did this once with a bank, you can then look at why are some people staying with us for 10 years and why are some people not staying with us? And you can split that funnel, you can split those two segments out and say, right, what are the differences using the data from my research between these guys? Is it demographics? Is it perceptual? Is it experiential? So you literally compare the surveys and you say, why are they staying and why are they going? What's the difference? That speaks to strategy. Jonathan Edwards, hello. Two from me marketing, communications, and briefing. You advise to stop short of sharing your ideas, yes, when you brief agencies. But from my experience, it's often led to sparking greater builds and executions. No. No. Is the reason for this advice because you begin to focus agency talent down a specific avenue? You got it. Is this feedback based on more creative development or holistically included specific marketing executions? It's a very, very general but very valid piece of advice. Now, Jonathan, you can ignore me. I'm happy with that. It's your job. I'm just telling you that I'm right. Don't give them ideas, man. You're closing the It's like I didn't put my daughter, I didn't. My wife didn't put our daughter into school until she was like six, seven. Because we just didn't want her like by the system. And now she's got terrible handwriting and doesn't really like school, but she's completely like mental, you know, which is what we wanted. In the same way, if you start giving the the agency your ideas, they're cowed into doing that. You want a big aperture. Don't, don't, don't put your stuff on there. It sucks as well, Jonathan. You just don't know it. It really sucks. Let the professionals do it. Camilla, practically, how do businesses go about estimating market share and market share of voice pre-AI data? When advertising on Google, for example, it's pretty easy to estimate where you're at in comparison to others in auction, but obviously that's a tiny part of the picture. Yeah, I talked to Les Burnett about this many years ago, and he reassured me that although you can't see the whole picture, you are able with the stuff you've got to get a pretty good index of what the total, what the total spend is and what your what your relative share of it is. But you make that point at the start. I think we're moving very quickly into a place where AI is able, it's something AI can do much more effectively. So I'd be using, I'd be feeding AI six or seven papers on excess share of voice, and I'd be then saying, go out and use your resources and give me this chart for my category. It's not going to be perfect. It's never been perfect when we did it manually, but it's going to get you a real insight that you need. Natalie, I have a question about pricing. In the supermarket world, discounts are almost always expected by customers. However, as Aldi have shown, you can be quite successful without having any discounts or promotions, which they always lean on in their positioning in comms. In an environment where it's near impossible to move away from discount promotions. Keep going. What would your suggestion be on maximizing profit? Is it realistic to assume that positioning in a way that highlights benefits other than discounting products or promoting other products that have a discount can counter the customer's reliance on discounts? Have a look at the IMG F U C K paper, Natalie. I think what it speaks to is, yeah, differentiation, relative differentiation is the lever that truly allows us to get price insensitivity. But then it comes down to you. It's not the consumer, Natalie. I'm not letting you get away with this. It's not the consumer. Sure, the consumer wants discounts. I want discounts, man. Everybody wants discounts. Are you gonna give them discounts? I get it. Working through supermarkets, you have to. You can't eliminate them completely. But you've already given up, Natalie. And I don't think you should give up. If your brand is good, if your product is good, if you're making a strong branded differentiated case, pull back on the discounts, right? It's the right advice. Easier said than done, but it's the right advice. Alex, from a media agency side, I've worked with a lot of FMCG clients in Australia. Oh god. And just let me just explain to everyone else, Alex. Australia is a shit show when it comes. I know where you're going with this. I haven't read it yet. But so we've got two monstrous retailers who are lovely but not very bright and who are maniacally driven to discount. Anyway, carry on. Alex is not in it. Australia is a wonderful country, except when you go to work in FMCG working with the two big retailers, as we I'm sure we'll see from her question. Right, you go, Alex, you go. Here, the supermarket duopoly creates pressure for brands to run promotions or demonstrate run rate in the lead up to review. Often this means discounting or yielding margin. Often the team deciding on these promotions sits separately to the brand marketers, and are, I assume, KPI to do short-term metrics. In instances where it seems that engaging in promotions secures, improves, or increases your physical availability, can running a promotion be justified? Is there value in calculating the cost of not doing it in the equation? It feels self-defeating, but for brands who are being told they're on the brink of deletion, this seems justified. So is it always the best option to try and get the retailer investment on promotions which do not adjust the price to consumers? Yeah, okay, got it. Yeah, I can't tell you that it's always bad to have a promotion. Your example is, you know, if I was to lose this distribution, I I it would be, you know, potentially fatal. I get it, I get it, I get it. So yeah, you've got to run those numbers. I I I I understand what you're saying, Alex. I'm just uh, you know, contrast your your question with the previous one. I just don't want anyone going on with the default. Well, we've got to do promotions, right? Do as few of them as possible, but sometimes to your excellent question, you've got to do them. Kimberly, Kimberly again. I'm working for a division of a large media company where the brand and B2C audience is the B2B product, and the product suite spans everything from training to recruitment to media. As the marketing strategist, it's incredibly interesting as it's like working for four or five businesses at once. But the challenge is taking a step back from the different product owners and sales teams and working out which segments have the best growth potential, i.e., a lot of sectors, audiences, products, buyer, personas, and users. A multivariable problem, which feels daunting to apply all of this lovely practical knowledge. Any case studies or tools or tips to help me prioritize which audience market to orient on? No, no, no. So it's a real so oh well, I've got one for you, Kim. The exam is about this. And when I debrief the exam, you'll get a perfect answer. You must do the exam, Kim, because it's it's exact you have to pick your targets. Camilla, regarding price, one of the case studies in the session was around Tyrrells and how they stopped discounting. I wanted to understand from a practical perspective, when brands like Tesco have different pricing for Club Card members, is it Tesco's that that are absorbing the price and not the brands? Or is this an example of retail media where brands have to pay? It varies, Camilla, but almost always uh the the manufacturer is getting the shaft. Uh, Maylee, on building your own custom funnels, you looked at only uh the UK for your mini MBA example. In my business, we have multiple products in multiple countries in various different stages of the life cycle. I'm trying to avoid doing a funnel for every product for every country because I'll be here for years. What's your suggestion for a practical way to do this? Uh different products need different funnels, different countries need different funnels. So I think your answer, Melee, is to only do the big products and the key countries. And then do one each. Uh Mailey, again, on pricing, you mentioned that an acceptable way to use discounting can be to encourage trial. Ah, that's, you know, yeah, maybe. I certainly see tons of introductory offers, and I've fallen prey to 50% off for the first month, only to cancel when the real price came into effect. LinkedIn Premium is a good example of this. Don't these discounted intro offers just demonstrate McKinsey's findings that 90% of new products are priced too low? Yeah, look, I'm I'm not endorsing them. I'm just saying it's one of the more arguable examples of promotion. But your point is a good one. Anna, I understand the concept of avoiding discounting. What is your opinion on offering payment and instalments? For example, Mini MBA doesn't offer that option. Yeah, that's not a strategic thing. It's not a discounting thing. We just don't have the credit capability in the structure of our company to do it. It gets messy, right? Um, but I I I wouldn't include it in the discounting section, Anna. It's just a it's a good thing to do if you can handle the credit and the the financial implications. Alex, in the context of core competencies, what is your long-term view on in-housing agency roles? If the argument is that only large-scale businesses should in-house, because it requires scale and investment to recruit and maintain teams, wouldn't there be considerable knock-on issues for sustaining talent? Yes, and there have been, right? One of the things you get from an omnicom is they're experts in recruiting, retaining, and motivating talent. And one of the problems with in-house is it now that we've been on this journey for three or four years, many of the in-house teams have been decimated by people frankly getting bored with doing the same thing and looking for more adventure. Anna, I like the MS article on the way it showed out the company re rediscovered a clear position. But when I worked for a successful fashion company, their lack of a clear strategy was quite confusing. They did have some kind of strategy, but it seemed to change from one season to another. And they were not particularly concerned about defining a simple, consistent position. To me, their success seemed to come from specializing in a particular product category, launching collections, and continually investing in celebrities. So I was wondering, in fashion, can the combination of product specialism design and celebrities function as its positioning? Yeah, that would be the tactical version of its position. I'd also be very interested to hear how you define the position of Louis Vuitton, if there's anything you could share about that. I know I'm not going there. We worked on the DNA of Louis Vuitton many years ago. I'm not sure it was ever fully accepted. They had their own version, but I'm not going there, Anna, because uh someone in Paris will still come after me with a big luxury sword and chop my head off. Alexandra Gill, in the context of core competencies, what's the rationale? Yeah, yeah. Oh no, it's a different question. What's the rationale for in-housing? Are there some agency skills you wouldn't in-house? Do you see some long-term issues with talent pipeline? I'm just struggling with the paradox. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts, given the value of great agency expertise. Look, it it's specialism in-housing is specialism, focus, saving money, um, speed. Going with a great agency is better talent, uh, better work, um, and the the the the chance to always keep it fresh. I I think we've had a big in-housing period. I think now the agencies are redesigning themselves in a practical way to make themselves more valuable. And I suspect the in-house moment hasn't disappeared but has reached its peak. Luke, I'm asking this through the lens of my freshly minted marketing expertise, building on the last QA and quoting P. T. Barnum, who famously said, There's no such thing as bad publicity. I'm looking at you, Ferrari. Designing 100% electric Ferrari and assuming people will come feels product-led. But could the opposite be true? Traditional Ferrari buyers aren't interested in an EV. That's not true. And someone prepared to spend 500k on EV may not be interested in a V8, V12 Ferrari. That's not true. And whilst the court of public opinion says it violates brand codes, DBAs and heritage, maybe, just maybe, they'll create a new market through line extension. All of that I like. No one's arguing against an EV Ferrari. They've got that little V6 hybrid EV, which is a tasty little car. Um, it's the way they did it. I mean, that car's a shit house car. That's that was my point, anyway. All signals suggest Jaguar could be dead in a few years and become another tombstone. And again, whilst public opinion was aghast at burning the platform, destroying the brand and lambasting the launch, early indications are the product is great. They haven't got a product yet. In both cases, everyone has an opinion. But the reality is 99% of these commentators will never own a Ferrari. And as Oscar Wilde said, the only thing worse than being talked about. not being talked about Ferrari's getting talked about Luke honestly um yeah the the Ferrari and an EV Ferrari makes perfect sense I'd buy one I have you know I have a petrol Ferrari I I I'm happy to admit I I'd much prefer an EV Ferrari for a lot of different reasons um um uh what would I say Jaguar is is is a different thing though Jaguar is is a is a is a sad old situation it's gonna get sold to the Chinese I'm sure of it anyway don't get me started Carl Michael don't get me started John this might be a strange one but how do you manage the diagnosis strategy tactics from a more creative business like if you're an artist most artists will not compromise their vision by the market but smart artists also need to proper proper pro need proper granite marketing is there a tension there there is I think about French cinema is a good example I I don't know whether the the the triptych applies in true creative industries where we're making something to surprise and delight and you know the reason American movie industry is so successful is they do diagnose strategy and tactics and the reason that French film is less commercially successful but often a much better movie is it's just you know a woman in a Mac making her vision. Do you know what I mean? I think there's a big difference there. Uli hello Mark the distribution module was sort of a pricing one too when you asked to put ourselves into the shoes of the marketing person facing a price drop from the retailer my response we're rather around one remind the retailer about the rationale for recommended resale price and two having a stronger category management approach. I understand the key message of not interfering in retailers pricing autonomy and staying out of jail. Our RRP and category management of no relevance in such a situation though no no no you you're right distribution and pricing you know and products will all swirl back in together for sure. Will we again regarding co-branding what are your thoughts on using one of the brands as a reason to believe like aerial detergent with fairy grease cutting power I love it. I think it's one of the many benefits of co-branding Iliada hi Mark I've been thinking a lot about brand assets and memory structures and there's a specific scenario imagine a legacy brand that used to have a massive iconic jingle and a killer slogan everyone grew up with it but then a few years ago a new marketing team decided to be modern changed the slogan completely drop the jingle predictably the brand lost its emotional connection if we want to win those old consumers back and fix that broken bond but also need to capture a younger audience who's never heard it before is it a smart move to go back to the past yes yes you can you can update the jingle I think in a modern way uh what's a good uh Iliada have a look there's an Australian brand called Two is two T O O H E Y S. I work with the ad agency on the revitalizing a very old uh feel like a two is I feel like a two-iz and it was very 1970s it was so hetero Aussie male we're all in the shower together having played rugby and now I feel like a two-is it felt I have to say not so not so hetero to me when in with modern eyes it was a little like hmm um I showed it to one of my game mates I'm like is this is my Gator and he's like oh yes um so they had to sort of update it was so macho it was going into weird directions um and two is um two is has modernized itself but it's kept gone back to its old slogan and I think it's been a success but it was a modern version of the old slogan have a look at two's you'll see what I mean. Coming back with the second question says Ilyeta uh the strategic dilemma has been on my mind. I might be late but the course beautifully thank you explains why we must invest in long-term brand building however in the real world during tough economic times CFOs and finance teams love to slash marketing budgets. When a brand faces intense retail and market pressure and the finance team has already cut the budget we can't tell them to trust the long-term plan. They want numbers and they want them now. My question what language should we actually speak to convince a finance team to invest in long-term brand building when they're completely hyper focused on short-term metrics apart from the standard ROI arguments what's the best practical weapon the best one is the 95-5 rule Ilyad um if you show them okay we can go after the 5% but see these other 95 they're coming into the market if we don't also spend money on them now when they come in we won't get them that's the argument I would play more than any other. And we'll end with Uli. Related to the comms module which top five evaluation criteria do you suggest applying when evaluating a creative idea assuming the work does address the client brief what would you recommend regarding the marketing team's feedback process? Look I'm I'm and this is feedback to the agencies um it it's very hard Uli I think to to be general about this topic when I've seen it done well I think it's two things the debrief for me is is decisively this idea but with with then the modifiers of but more of this or less of that I think you have to pick and then you have to say what you want more of but it really depends. Alright I want to cycle back here hang on hang on so let me show you where we are because I want to I want to talk about this so here's where we are you're watching me here in the QA here's modules nine and ten so what will happen on Monday is different. We have no more modules right so on Monday the exam tile will open on that exam tile I will explain the exam I'll introduce how it works what we're gonna do the whole thing's there it's self-explanatory it's foolproof as you'll see everything is explained you then have almost two weeks to complete that exam the hard deadline is July 3rd right um it doesn't take two weeks a couple of afternoons you can take longer if you want get your exam in do the exam I don't care about A's and B's and C's what I care about is you pulling all this knowledge together and the exam is the best way to do that. I've built the exam so you can learn not so we can just test people okay do the exam if you don't want to put if you get a shit grade and you're embarrassed we we will allow you not to put the grade on the exam doesn't matter we're here to learn yeah it's a grown up course so what's gonna happen is then you're gonna you've got two weeks to do the exam July 3rd is your deadline you're gonna submit the platform is open the whole time you've got access to everything then we need a couple of weeks to grade these things there's a lot of you and then on the 20th of July just over two weeks later back here this tile will light up and I will come back with a course conclusion module where we'll review the exam, talk about next steps, do the whole caboodle okay give you your grades on that same day your certificate will also become available and this uh tile will open up as well so these two come on stream on the 20th of July. The portal then stays open till the end of July and then you become part of our alumni and still have access to everything anyway okay so there's no rush there. Just focus on the exam. In the two weeks while we're working on the exam use our LinkedIn page if you've got questions. I encourage all of you to cheat to share answers to discuss what you think is the right or wrong answer. Remember most of you will have it wrong so don't follow anyone out you know trust yourself here but use our LinkedIn group. I'll try and check in every day to make sure that if there's a technical question about the exam I'm on it. Okay? Enjoy the exam. It really is brutal but fun. I'll be back on July the 3rd no I won't I'll be back on July the 20th to wrap up the course and talk about future directions okay enjoy the exam. You'll be fine don't be nervous I mean some of you won't be fine some of you are going to be screwed but you know most of you are going to be screwed but but the experience will be uh a useful one see you in a couple of weeks