My Best Marketing Tips #27: ALL WE HAVE IS NOW / Tom Goodwin / Co-Founder
My Best Marketing Tips #27: ALL WE HAVE IS NOW / Tom Goodwin / Co-Founder
Tom’s career spans 20 years across various agencies and new start-up formations, culminating recently with the creation of ALL WE HAVE IS NOW – a self-entitled “insurgent innovation and transformation consultancy.” His aim is to look at how brands can enact meaningful ways to respond to how the world is changing.
Looking back at some of the more meaningful interactions that have opened his eyes in his career, Tom likes to refer to a meeting with news anchor in New York, where he was surprised to see that she was pro-Donald Trump’s presidency and was making some excellent points in his favour. This led him to questioning assumptions and working at “flexing the empathy muscle” to understand and expand to the points of view of others.
What would be your best marketing tip?
Read annual reports of companies.
I don’t know where I got this from, but I think it’s the best way to balance the creative and imaginative forces of marketers with what companies really look for: return on investment, assets, risks etc. Being able to read these annual reports will make you more credible in your marketing conversations, giving you the depth that I think a lot of people in the industry just don’t have.
How have you put this marketing tip to good use?
This is all part of looking at the big picture, taking a step back and challenging assumptions. For example, you’d be surprised how little companies care about the marketing work we do when they write their end-of-year recaps: there’s no mention of Twitter followers, likes, or anything like that. Instead, they care about risks and assets and the economic factors that are relevant for their growth. So I try to focus more on the broader picture and figure out the world of finance.
What marketing tips does the industry need most right now?
When you look at brands that have been very successful, like Innocent Smoothies or Uber, you might think it’s all about disruption through new technology. But, on a closer look, it’s about challenging assumptions – people coming in and questioning some of the ways things have always been done and some of the expectations we have always had about how stuff works.
In advertising, we’ve assumed so much: we assume that the metrics we measure matter, that digital advertising is a performance element, and so much more. We also feel like discussing differences and delving into them with meaningful purpose can come across as rude. We need to get over that and learn to absorb other points of view. There are plenty of assumptions which might be true, but we just need to take a step back and question them.
What is the marketing tip you give most often?
For anyone just starting out or even for seasoned marketers, my advice is to not let yourself be sucked into this anxiety about having to “make it.” I know a director who once said that “All screenplays that deserve to be made end up getting made.” It’s a way to say that, if you’re good enough and you work hard, you’ll be
fine. This leads to some form of relaxation, I hope, and empowerment.
And always, always be curious!
Listen to Tom talk about survivorship bias, his top marketing tips and his advice on how to
challenge assumptions, on the latest episode of our Shiny New Object
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