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Uh Mini MBA, how are you? How are you? Welcome to QA session two. A beautiful handful of questions this week. Uh just the right amount. We're moving beautifully now from uh segmentation, which was the end of diagnosis. We started targeting this week, the beginning of strategy, and you should have felt that change in water temperature as we move from A to B. So a bunch of questions. Let's get into them. Um, and then we'll talk a little bit about what's coming next week. Question from Rianca. Uh hi Mark. Do you think all the extra data has actually improved customer understanding or has it mostly added complexity? In everyday Well, that's a great opening question, Rianca. My sense is it hasn't made marketing a lot better. It should have made us better, but if you look at some of the metrics on, you know, the effectiveness of advertising, as much as we can tell, it's either flat or down. So we've lived through this sort of decade of, you know, stacks and customer intelligence. There's no demonstrable impact going on. How do we explain that? I think as we learned in module two, it's not just about data, it's if you, you know, it's whether you know what to do with it. And and and I don't think a lot of marketers do. So, no, I don't think generally it's made us better. But specifically thinking about you, Rianca, yes, I mean, I think if you're a well-trained marketer with good data, you will still be better. I think as an industry, we are possibly going a little bit backwards. We're certainly not going forwards, but that's great. It's great because the relative competition that you face isn't that strong. And I like that, you know. Two, in everyday work, where do you think marketers most often go wrong when it comes to strategy? Ah, um, I would say two things. Not not spending any time on it, it takes a bit of time. You gotta, you know, you gotta sit on your ass a little bit. Um, and second, um, having too many strategic dreams rather than, and we'll talk about this in objectives in a couple of weeks. You can only have a handful of objectives, no matter how big your brand is. That's we've got tons of research on this. You've got to boil it down. Strategy is what you don't do. So I think having too many strategic wishes and getting nothing done as a result, they'd be my big two. Number three, these are great questions, Srianka. It's downhill from here. We test value propositions all the time. What's the one thing you look for that tells you a value prop is genuinely different and not just well worded? We'll talk about it next week. I I think when you build a really strong bit of positioning, your first response is everyone in the market is gonna want this. I felt that about Mini MBA, and that's not to say everyone in the market did want it, but I felt like, oh my god, this is so good and so beneficial, and it fits perfectly what the segment wants, it has to be a huge win. I think if you don't have that feeling when you look at your value prop and you're like, oh, innovation and integrity for people that don't really care, you you're you're already on a loser. So for me, I think you've got to feel like, oh my god, this is so good, everyone's gonna want it. That's a very good indicator, either that you're insane or that you really are onto a winner. And we'll talk about that next week. Uh, Katie, after hearing your answer to a question in the last QA, I had to uh ask a follow-up about purpose-oriented brands. Okay, we're gonna get there, but let's go now. Uh, what are your thoughts on businesses gaining ESG certificates like B Corp, Fair Trade, or even 1% for the planet? Businesses are increasingly seeking these certs to signal to conscious consumers they're more responsible, ethical, helping them stand out in the market. Do you think these fail to drive actual consumer behavior? Your piece on ESG data has me second guessing. Even though I've seen data reported, they do positively influence purchasing decisions. I believe there's merit in obtaining these certs to track, measure, and report impact. But are you suggesting they're misplaced as a driver of growth? Yes and no. So, first of all, I think you should do ESG because it's good. I I don't think you need a commercial mandate. I think you should be good and fair and lovely. I mean, I'm a I'm an agnostic slash atheist somewhere in between. I still don't think I should be a shit to people because there's no reward. I'm not going to heaven, I don't believe. Um, I still think you should be nice to people. Um, by the same token, I think we should follow the principles of ESG um because they're good principles to follow, and not because we necessarily do better from them, but it's just good to be good. The purpose of purpose is purpose. Now, having said that, the exception is if your business is positioned on things that B Corp or Fair Trade uh deliver on, then I think it may it would it would benefit you to be certified. So where I get a bit of a problem is pi is is experts and purpose vendors saying if you don't have purpose you'll fail, but if you do have purpose, you'll be successful. It depends, it depends, it depends. And I don't like tactics before strategy. So you do your targeting, you do your positioning, you set your objectives, and then if you really want to see whether B Corp certification is going to be good for business, see if it aligns with those things because it's a tactic and we start with strategy, which doesn't mean you shouldn't do them, it just means if you want to do them for corporate reasons, I think you're missing the point. But if you really want to do them for corporate reasons, you're gonna have to first of all get your strategy and see if it fits. Adam Fenton, in the course structure and in your general consideration, where does portfolio sit in strategy? Under positioning or in tactics under product? It's a fair call out, Adam. Um we do portfolio actually in the brand management negative, so not in your course at all, I'm afraid to say, as part of brand architecture, it's a big part of the brand architecture course, part of the brand management course. What we don't cover it here, and if we had more time, we would. I would cover portfolio in products, and it will get a brief mention there. And that's not the right place. It's the rightest place we've got. But you're right to call it out if you had a portfolio. If you have more money and time, come and do brand management. We do an enormous job on portfolio and architecture. We will cover it a little bit in product. Carly Talbot. I'd love to hear more about how you might approach a global segmentation. Is it really impossible? Yeah, yeah, it really is. I've typically worked in global or multinational roles, trying to drive scale across initiatives. No matter the situation, there's pushback that our country is unique because yeah, I see the same or very similar needs crop up, and intuitively feel like it could be addressed with similar solutions. You're not wrong, Carl, but here's the problem, right? I've been on the receiving end of global segmentations for 25 years. So here's a lovely presentation, and here's the seven different segments, and now you go and apply this, and the markets are like, screw you. We are a bit different, at least in proportions, or in a couple of the segments being different, or the compared as being different. It doesn't work. The global team think they're doing great work, but it doesn't ever get traction, ever, with the countries. So what's the answer? The answer is Carly Talbot in the Global Group trains each country in how to do segmentation the comp the company way. She trains them to be map makers and she lets them build the map. That has two advantages. The country now loves the map because they built it and building it was part of the learning, and the markets were different. And second, Carly Talbot, who's the map maker, can understand every country's map because she showed them how to build the maps in the first place. So when I've seen it work, you train the country in how to segment properly, and then everyone has a different map, but using the same map book, and it works beautifully. That's the secret, it's somewhere in between. And trust me, if there's one thing I know about, it's doing that thing. I've done it for a lot of big companies in a lot of countries. Wen Queen, thanks for showing the mini MBA segmentation, which is real and helpful. Now it's it's I fictionalized the shit out of it, Wen Queen, just because I don't want my competitors to do my course. Knowing what my segments are, but you but it's you know it's close. For our company, also B2B, but with quite comprehensive portfolio with the same sales team to promote these brands. So for segmentation, shall we do segmentation for each brand or as a total company? Yeah, it's a you've you've included the right information, Wen Quing. Because it's the same sales team, I think you have to have the same segmentation. I've built different segmentations for the same company in medical marketing, for example, because there are different uh products and different sales teams, even though it's the same hospital and same company. But in your case, same sales team means although you've got lots of different products, you're gonna have to map the consumer segments out and then work out who you're targeting so the sales force and the right parts of the product portfolio can be attached to the different segments. I think that's the way to do it. Uh and you ask different brands may start with different attributes as the first step in the meaningful actionable grid. No, no, no, no. Listen, market segmentation is about the market. Do the segmentation. You're not doing product, you're not doing strategy, you're not doing any of that. Segmentation, still diagnosis. Do that first for the market, and we move from there. You it will work if you do it that way. Marie Devlin, hi Mark. You mentioned in module three that some of the key stages of the marketing journey, like segmentation, have become more optional. Can you talk a bit more around this? I work with SMEs in the IT space who typically don't understand marketing. How can I embed the diagnosis stages into a plan for small businesses who will struggle to see the relevance? Is there a light version that can be applied? No, but you could do a light version of segmentation. So one of the things we talk about with smaller companies is that in a nutshell, you reverse research and segmentation. And so, what I mean is you build a very simple segmentation from secondary data that still has some value and it's been sized. And then you work for the client to say who should we target? And you pick one or two target segments, usually one. Then when you understand that's the group we're going after, you can then go and do qualitative research to understand that group of companies and build an offer for them. That's the lightest path I would be comfortable you following, Maureen. Kelly Griffith. On your point, I want my daughter to be called Kelly, and my wife wouldn't let me Kelly. And I um I I um I'm still thinking about that a little bit. I've got a Roxy, not a Kelly, but that's fine. But Kelly, uh Kelly is right up there for me, which one of the great names. Assuming you're Mrs. Kelly Griffiths and not Mr. Kelly Griffiths but that's a different story. On your pointer and asking questions in the market in place of getting data in other ways, do you think this should be structured or unstructured? I guess the pros of going out in person is you can get a real feel, but only if you can be socially easy enough to carry it off. In this scenario, are nodes sufficient, or is it best to have more of a plan? Can too much of a plan diminish the rawness of it all? Final note would you consider messaging users on Insta to replicate going out in a market? Yeah, but no, but no. I think you're asking a great question, Kelly. I I mean the the the short answer is qual versus quant. In the qualitative stage where you are going out open-ended, very unstructured is the way to go. Yeah? Once you get into the structured world of quant, obviously you're super you're super, super, super structured. Um, but in the qualitative world, a semi-structured interview is a beautiful thing. You've got seven or eight areas you're going to touch on, but you'll always find the follow-up question from that first structured question is where you get your real insights. Semi-structured is the is the middle ground. Christy, in a distributed B2B model with several influencing segments, how should a manufacturer decide whether to prioritize end user understanding versus deeper insight into distributor, wholesaler, influencer who may drive brand choice? Uh, it's an old question with an old answer, Christy. You've got to understand both. You've got to understand both. You have to understand your distributor because they're the immediate customer you've got to you've got to manage. But you have to understand um the end user, partly so you don't get led astray by a distributor only services part of the market, and partly because you want to have more if the distributor sells 4,000 parts and you specialize in a certain kind of part, you need to be an expert in that user so you've got power over the distributor in your particular sector. So it's an old question with an old answer. It's not a choice, it's a remit, it's a challenge to do both. Christy says, in channel-based distribution, how should a manufacturer balance sharing consumer and market insights with distributors to drive alignment while protecting proprietary knowledge that could reduce competitive advantage you've shared too broadly? That's a brilliant question. And I ain't got an answer. I know exactly what you mean, and I know exactly what you're thinking. And the answer is yep, there's a big advantage and there's a big downside. I would I would stray more towards sharing. I think we often over stress on how smart and challenging our competitors are in this level. I think getting the distributors on side and impressed and interacting with you is the priority over the fact that maybe competitors will get some of this data, but probably not act on it. So for me, I would suggest be more generous. Be careful, but be more generous. Michelle, like at scales of five out of seven, allow five or seven, allow for people to sit in the middle. Why not use four or six and make people go one way or another? Too often people sit in the middle or don't go to the extreme, so they hover around the middle. Shouldn't we also make sure the 400 are representative? I. There are certain groups of people more likely to answer surveys. We're reliant on people from all demographics taking part. Do you really think panels give you the diversity you need? Because only certain types of people sign up. Uh, do you delve into outliers or use averages to make decisions? How do we access the Cantar training? Oh, there are so many questions. Um so, first of all, um, yeah, yeah, look, it's um it's a very methodological point, and there's an out there's a very um complicated argument either way. You sometimes want to offer them the safe harbour of a central number, and sometimes you want a forced choice, and there's been a long-running 40-year discussion about it, and about five or seven, none of which I want to go into. I it in the big scheme of things, you can do whatever you like, Michelle. Um the 400 should be representative quantitatively uh and of the subgroups in the market. Rest assured, the big panels who only do one thing, panels, test and retest their panels and work very hard to balance it out to ensure that psychographically, demographically, you name it, they've got accurate, authentic panels. It's not perfect, but it's better than anything else we've ever had in quantitative research. Trust the panel research. You can trust it, honestly. Um, I thought we had a link to the Cantar training. Where's my notebook? I will make a note of this note. That's not a pen. Not that kind of pen anyway. Where's my pen? That's a lighter. Great. Let me check on Cantar and I'll get back to you on LinkedIn about that. It with a link if it's not there. I I'm I'm we had it in there a month ago, so unless it's been pulled by Cantar, we should have a link to it, okay? And and that last bit, do you delve into outliners? You never use averages. You certainly look because averages lose everything. Um, you can look at outliers and they can be interesting qualitatively. You're better off looking at different subgroups rather than the whole average, would be my answer. Let me look at the Cantar stuff, Michelle. Kerry, I work in pet insurance, which has a lower penetration rate than most insurance. Is our mass market defined as the total customers with pet insurance or total potential customers with a pet? Now, I'm not gonna answer your question, Kerry, because I can't. You have to strategically decide. I always think of it as a rectangle, yeah. Before we start segmenting, slicing the rectangle, targeting slices, you've got to you've got to decide. No one can tell you this. All I can tell you is it's got to be the broadest definition of anyone that could be in your market that's practical, right? But you're also strategically allowed to go, I'm too small to do all this, so we're only gonna do cats, right? Or the north of England. Yeah. You can also you can also cut it for practical reasons, but you have to A, define it, B, define what business you're in, and C work out the population size. And there's only you can do it, and there's no perfect answer, Kerry, but there needs to be an estimation at the heart of this so we can move on. I would say to you generally, it's everyone with a pet that you would offer insurance for. Yeah, that that would be my take on it, but you may want to do it a different way, and that would be also correct. Marillia, I have a scenario-based question. Okay, it's like role play, okay? If you were a newly established SME with limited resources and funding, trying to launch a new product, what would be the best practice to begin the segmentation? Would you still do the process of meaningful actionable, or would you opt for something else? Well, here's what I would do. Um, we sort of mentioned it earlier. I would build a very simple, meaningful, actionable grid from secondary data. So I'd have my segments, I'd work out who I was going after from that segmentation, and for that target or targets, I would then visit three or four of these client sites and I would do qualitative research to build a portrait, test the product, do some pricing work, and understand. It's a good route. Allison. Does an AI enable 150,000 segments for a population of 150,000 as the future of segmentation? It that what it does, and it doesn't, Alison. It does in the sense that theoretically now we could have 150,000 names uh theoretically in a database. We've still got to make a product for them, we've still got to reach them, we've still got to service them. You see what I mean? Segmentation isn't just about segmentation, it's about creating a map for a journey that then takes place. So AI can do whatever it's like, but if we're selling wheel nuts, at some point we have to sell them the wheel nuts um that that that would that they will use. So yes, but no. Nice thought. Stefan. Hello, Mark. I understand that strategy is about making choices and deciding what not to do. Yeah, but in the module you also talk about bothism. Yeah. Doing both things, like targeting a segment and the mass market, or balancing differentiation and distinctiveness. How should we reconcile these two ideas? That's a great point. I think you you you can have both, Stefan, and it's something I've thought about a lot too. I think let me put it this way: when we do uh distinctiveness, you're gonna have to be choiceful on which distinctive brand assets you use. Okay, but on a broader level, bothism can apply here because bothism is set up when you know when marketers are uh you're pushed into this, you have to you have to do distinctiveness, you can't do differentiation, you have to do uh performance marketing, you can't do brand building, yeah. You have to do digital, you can't do traditional. It's it's not an open choice of seven or eight things. It's when things get binary that I say put them together. Strategy is different. Strategy saying there are 42 possible objectives, we can only have five. That's a you see what I mean, it's a slightly different choice, I would argue. Mr. Charles Williams, in the discussion around sophisticated mass marketing, you mentioned where budget is an issue. Considering targeting by subcategory or by segment. What is the distinction between a subcategory and a segment here? Yeah, okay. So the famous example of subcategories is let's use the Greek yogurt one, right? When Chobani started as a relatively small company, they couldn't take on the big yogurt companies. So they went, you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna go after uh the the subcategory of Greek yogurt where there aren't really many offerings, and we're gonna make Greek yogurt. So it wasn't targeting a segment, it was it was saying we're gonna create a new little room and we're gonna offer that product and then we'll market it from there. Uh when Lululemon started, um they found that there was an underserved segment in the sporting uh clothing business, which was basically uh women in Canada that did yoga couldn't get any yoga clothing, they went after a particular group of 30-something Canadian yoga enthusiasts. That's the target segment. It's the same play, go small and then grow out, but it has different dynamics. Yeah? Does that make sense? John Duncan. Do you have any tips for reconciling multiple segmentations with a business, within a business? Oh yeah. I've worked in D2C businesses who've created behavioral segmentation based on ordering data. When there is also a market segmentation driven by marketing insights, I found it challenging to align the two and to communicate the Value as it's based more on what people say they do rather than what they do. Look, I can you could argue it either way. I'm I kind of agree with you, John. Here's my point: unless you're a grandmaster and you're not, and neither am I, playing chess on two different chess boards at the same time is impossible. You lose both games. It's very similar to segmentation. I'm not saying there needs to be a perfect map or that a perfect map even exists. But we're not going to go on a journey with two different maps. We're going to pick a map, we're going to make everyone use the same map. And that's essential. So yeah, choose one. No tips. Millie Addison, you frame targeting very clearly as a strategic act of exclusion. Yeah, or flip it around. You could make it a strategic act of inclusion if the decision is I want to go after everyone. But a strategic act, I like that bit. But many marketers don't have the organizational authority to say no. In that reality, what does good targeting look like when compromise is inevitable? And where market where should marketers hold the line? Yeah, you make a good point. Um I'll give you an example from Mini MBA. We until this year haven't targeted America. Too big, too difficult, too complex, too overserved. Um, now that doesn't mean we said no to Americans. What it means is we didn't spend any money targeting America and we invested our money elsewhere. I think that's the answer. I think as a marketer, we we aren't going to say to the organization, don't take these people or don't worry about that. But with our money, we will focus on the places where we want to see growth and make that happen. That that's the if we don't have the authority to do anything more, we can at least do that with our marketing budget, hopefully. Hello, Mark. On the use of ethnography, how does this best work in practice in your experience? Should it be observational or should you ask lots of questions and be inquisitive? The reason I ask is that I can imagine once you start asking lots of questions, you may unintentionally lead the witness or turn it more into an interview or even a mini-focus group. Does that matter? Any do's or don'ts? I'm really enjoying the course. That's good, that's good. Um, it I'll tell you the best lesson, Nick. The human research instrument, which has been evolving for a million years, is much better than even AI. And it's built on the idea that if you drop yourself into a group of other humans, you'll start learning almost straight away. You're worrying about shit, frankly here, Nick. You're worrying about shit which I understand why you're worrying it, it's because you haven't done it yet. You'll get amongst it and you'll be like, oh, right. All of that, it's rubbish. You just people are gonna tell you. They're gonna sit you down and tell you, hey, I'll tell you. Well, you want to know about this, I'll tell you. It's like one of the most common things I get is like, if you run your own focus group, you'll lead it and you'll lead them in wrong directions. That's that's always said by someone that's never run a focus group. Get in a focus group and try and drive them to different opinions than they really have. People go, that's not what I mean. What are you talking about, man? That's not I'm saying the opposite of that. This is what I'm saying. Same with ethnography. You go on their turf to ask them about their decision, they will tell you, and you will you'll very quickly find yourself in a place of insight. It's a good worry, it will disappear about eight minutes after you start doing it. Trust me, you'll be fine. You'll be fine. Good. You mentioned that it was later in your career that strategy became a focus. Yeah. What did that shift look like with your approach? Team dynamics, client relationships. I I I just think it was a gravitational thing where initially you were, you know, I was aware of strategy, but it was kind of like this vague 30,000-foot con concept, and we were in the business of making cool ads, you know, or developing a product or working on a price optimization. It's only later on that you start coming back to, oh, there's a central, you know, there's a central uh logic that's much more important. And it's partly a function of getting more senior and getting more involved in the big picture stuff, right? But I think we all, if our careers go well, we'll swim further upstream and you'll get more and more exposed to it. And that means as a young marketer, you don't have to worry as much about it. Be aware of it. Once you start having to build them, what we're learning on the course, what we will learn the next two weeks is essential, as you'll see. Second, as an agency for small mid-sized B2Bs, client patience for longer brand plays is low. Is the answer as simple as doing proper diagnosis, but being more biased towards short-term prime segments to get more trust and introduce a more ideal balance later? Yeah, that's a good suggestion, Court. I have to be honest with you, you have to be stronger with these people for their own good. Yeah. They're losing a fortune by missing this point. I the best tip I can give you is 95.5. Yeah. I've never seen anything work better than explaining to non-marketers the 95.5 rule. And then you go, you know, build the 95.5 for their industry, and then go, right, that's why we need performance. Targeted product, bottom of the funnel, activating comms. Get it? Let's put half of our money here. But the other 95%, because 70 to 80% of the time, the brand that comes to mind first, when they enter the 5%, is the one that they will buy. That's what the data says, B2B, B2C. We need to also have mass communication, which is all about salience and emotion. Yeah. Top of funnel, always on, so that when they do enter the 5%, we already got them. That that actually does begin to work. Michael, would you agree that organic social is more catered to the long of it, brand building, mass marketing, but paid social suits the short of it? Uh not always, but generally, yes. I think that's a good truism, Michael. And it makes digital social a slightly more different concept. Sophia. A lot of what we learn in marketing equals segmentation, value propositions, ESG signaling, feels very logical and correct, as it should. Yet many brands that win don't necessarily follow these principles in a textbook way. Where do you see the biggest gap today between what marketers think works and what actually drives growth in the real world? Oh, it's a good question, Sophia. Um, pricing is the answer. Um, I think marketers have a giant uh blind spot for pricing, and pricing is more important than anything except a product. It's about eight times more important than advertising. So, fortunately, we're going to cover it in the mini MBA, and you will become an expert and you will see why I think that. Sophia's gonna finish us off with two more questions. Uh, thank you for the course and for sharing such valuable knowledge. It's been incredibly insightful. I'm writing from Ukraine. Which idea in modern marketing is the most overrated? I love Ukraine, but so first of all, you know, to all of our we we have a we have a long-running scholarship for Ukrainian marketers, and we're proud to have you guys, and glory to the heroes. You we feel for you and we haven't forgotten you guys. Which idea in modern marketing is the most overrated? Yeah, everyone's afraid to admit it. Um, I would say to you, probably, Sophia, it would be personalization. There's a role for it, but it gets talked about a lot more than it should. Most consumers don't want it. It's usually impossible, and it isn't that powerful. So I think, yeah, for pound for pound, it's the worst one. And our final question: what in marketing works today, but in five years will look like a complete illusion? Nothing. Um, in five years' time, things will look pretty much like they do now. It doesn't change as much as everyone has you believe. It certainly doesn't happen that stuff that works suddenly stops working, you know? You know, I can show you 90 years ago, as TV began to emerge, everyone started talking about how how radio is dead. Yeah, radio is still a powerful medium. It's changed, it's less powerful, still here. So I don't think things are that binary or dead, if I'm honest with you. Yeah. Great questions. Right, okay, where are we going? Oh my god, this is huge next week. We'll go into positioning, then we'll go to objectives. Two big parts of strategy. So really get stuck into them. Positioning is a super important and excellent module. So I'll see you for a Kit Kat on Monday morning in class, and our journey will continue from there.