Are You Marketing For The Next 3 Months Or The Next 3 Years?

Everybody is marketing short term – is there a reason to market long term?

Whether most organizations will admit it, most of them are marketing quarter to quarter. Even with the promise of a better economy, even private companies are nervous about looking beyond a quarter or two. Unfortunately when we market for quarterly results – long-term thinking suffers.

But here’s the question – is that okay?

We may just be shifting our thinking into more short term mindset – and one that we just have to adapt to.

But we can’t lose long-term marketing strategy. Short term marketing may give us results – but they will be short term results – and not long-term value.

Consider what Nike has done with its World Cup campaign. Look at the epic commercial called “Write the Future”. It’s an amazing piece of filmmaking directed by Alejandro Inarritu. It features cameos by Kobe Bryant, Roger Federer and even Homer Simpson. And, the campaign features the opportunity for a lucky fan to get an invitation to Nike soccer camp where they will be scouted by professionals.

That’s not a marketing campaign that was created for results in the next quarter. That’s a campaign that, itself took years to execute, and is squarely focused on building long-term brand value.

We have to make room for both the short term results – and the long-term strategy. The planning and strategy development processes are critical.

The consulting firm McKinsey & Company conducted a study a few years ago looking at large corporations that had successfully balanced both a long-term and short-term strategy. What they found was that the majority of companies didn’t have the financial assets to do both – but instead engaged the leaders in the company to make smart (but sometimes difficult) tradeoffs to emphasize the priorities of both.

They found that these companies revised strategies frequently on an ongoing basis, to ensure they could enable management to be nimble. In this way they could decide to expand, change, or even delete short term objectives against long-term strategies.

At Boyd we are constantly working with clients to revisit long-term objectives. It’s always helpful to have periodic “check-ins” to review what we’re doing – and how it’s reaching the overall long-term goals.

It’s important that we reach those quarterly goals – but we’ve got to make sure that while we get there, we don’t lose ground in building long-term value.