Executive Insight Series
Value Creation: A Pillar of Thought Leadership
Insights from a Consumer Launch  

“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it” - Robert Frost

What is Thought Leadership?

It is a maxim that has been proven time and again in our culture: biggest is not always best.  Think about it.  What do Apple, Toyota, Neutrogena, Movado, Aquafina, Aveeno, Tom’s of Maine, Swatch and Bose Sound systems have in common?  Although none of these brands is the largest in their segment of business, they are clearly the “thought leaders” and the cultural catalysts in their class. 

Executive Insight Series
Customer Segmentation Strategy
Lessons from a Consumer Launch 

"Most organizations spend an enormous amount of their time cultivating new business, which is neither strategic nor productive.  They fall into the trap of mistaking activity for
accomplishment." -Dan Mack, Mack Elevation Forum LLC

Winning with the “Few”

Setting a clear line of demarcation between who your customers are and who they are not may be one of the most significant decisions businesses make.  Most companies have an urge or an unconscious reflex to respond to each of their customers with the same level of zest, passion and commitment. The problem with that philosophy is that not all customers are created equally, nor does each of them serve the same strategic or financial role within a business.

“The Best Way to predict the future is to invent it”  - Alan Kay

Bono as Revivalist

In preparation for the November 2004 release of U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, Bono shared his approach to music creation. “After creating a new song we do everything but take its head off, and then we try to rebuild it.  If the song stands it is worth putting on the record.”1

When I heard those words recently, I recognize that industry has much to learn from the arts.  The level of passion and openness that allows an artist to birth a song and then disruptively tear it apart to see if it stands up to the pressure illustrates a valuable lesson.

“When campaigns resist change on the pretext of preserving continuity, when we see the same images year after year, we eventually fail even to notice them.
They become as insignificant as they are familiar.” - Dru, Jean-Marie, Disruption: Overturning Conventions and Shaking Up the Marketplace

The Disruption of Vision

In Leadership Is An Art, former Herman Miller Chairman Max Depree recounts asking his organization “What should grace enable us to be?”   Depree’s simple question is the most important one any person in leadership can ever ask.   The question requires an exploration of corporate calling and personal vision, which can lead to transformative results.

“Long, long ago, in an economy far, far away, corporate empires and advertising oligarchs relied on big budgets to drive dominating advertising campaigns across the consumer landscape.  As these behemoths gobbled up one medium after another, believing ‘bigger is better,’ small bands of rebel operations learned to make do with what they had.  Using the weapons of creativity and resourcefulness, they succeeded in stretching their limited budgets far into unknown territory.  And so guerrilla marketing was born.  Frugality was its capacity to attract loyal niche markets that were inaccessible by mainstream ad campaigns, as well as crucial trendsetters turned off by the gloss and plasticity that characterize ad campaigns directed at the masses.”

Ubiquity: Appearing Relevant and Everywhere

“Guerilla marketing provides the personal encounter that is so vital in the Emotional Economy – the consumer can see the face of a brand.”