My Best Marketing Tips #12: MG Motor UK Ltd / David Pugh / Marketing Director
David Pugh is the Marketing Director at MG Motor UK Ltd, where he blends creativity with analytics thanks to his background in engineering. While creativity is a big part of marketing, David sees it as a science, where ultimately, approaching everything from an analytical standpoint yields results.
Marketing is the best job in the world for David: “We are the luckiest people in the world working in this industry” where every day is a “school day” and an opportunity to learn about how to get under the skin of people. In fact, learning and studying people’s behaviours is what fascinates him and what’s kept him thriving in his career.
What is the best marketing tip you’ve ever received and who was it from?
I tend to think there’s no such thing as a silver bullet, but one thing that Vauxhall Chairman Bill Parfitt once told me has stuck with me: “Surround yourself with good people.”
How have you put this marketing tip to good use?
I find that I am a generalist and I definitely don’t know all that much about marketing. Having come from engineering and business school, I accept I can never know everything, and I think if you are in a leadership position, you always need to accept that you’ll need experts who know more than you. I always try to do that and my advice would be to find the people you enjoy working with, who you share a mindset with, and give them clear direction and… get out of their way!
What marketing tips does the industry need most right now?
Ever since we’ve had digital marketing, we’ve focused so much on clicks and likes and this sort of metrics. But, actually, untargeted ads can be just as powerful as the targeted content. The TV remote is as significant as a click on the smartphone screen.
I say this because I believe in marketing that works specifically because it isn’t targeted because it appeals to our need to establish and improve our standing in our peer group. So, if you know everyone else has watched a TV ad, you can choose to buy that product because of what that choice says about you. We send signals with the products we’re using, specifically because they’re not in a targeted ad that only we’ve had access to.
Ultimately, I think there isn’t enough data to give us a right or wrong answer about using targeted and untargeted marketing, but a mix of both will work in the long term.
What is the marketing tip you give most often?
Every day’s a school day. I love marketing and I’m a generalist who’s always learning, and always looking to learn about marketing. When I think back on my decision to go to business school, that was the best investment in my career. This is why I always encourage studying.
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