Marketoonist

“Thinking Outside The Box” - new cartoon and post https://lnkd.in/ga7XXPHv Conventional wisdom holds that creativity comes from “thinking outside the box”, but constraints are actually one of its key ingredients. One of Google’s principles of innovation is “creativity loves constraints,” as Marissa Mayer once recounted: “People think of creativity as this sort of unbridled thing, but engineers thrive on constraints. They love to think their way out of the little box.” The concept of thinking outside the box originated in the 70s with a psychologist named J.P. Guilford and a famous nine-dots brainteaser. J.P. drew nine dots in the shape of a square and asked study subjects to connect them all with four straight lines without lifting the pen. The answer (which only 20% figured out) required drawing the lines beyond the artificial boundary of the square — thinking “outside” that box. J.P. turned that brainteaser into a sweeping theory on creativity problem-solving in general. His theory entered the zeitgeist with an army of creativity consultants. Thinking outside the box has been part of the way we talk about innovation ever since. But this study was not only debunked in follow-up studies, the importance of constraints has long been overshadowed. Researchers in an HBR article reviewed 145 empirical studies on the effects of constraints on creativity and innovation and found that a “healthy dose of constraint” was the great unlock. In one representative example, they wrote about the origin of a particular GE Healthcare innovation — the MAC 400 ECG — which revolutionized rural access to medical care. GE credits the success of the innovation to tight constraints on cost ($1 a scan), form factor (fits in a backpack), time (18 month development), and budget (one-tenth of the previous product). I like this insight from Jeff Bezos: “I think frugality drives innovation just like other constraints. One of the best ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.” For related cartoons and all the links in this post, click here: https://lnkd.in/ga7XXPHv To sign up for my weekly marketoon email newsletter, click here: https://lnkd.in/gyWRQBxu #marketing #cartoon #marketoon

“Playing it safe is risky” - new cartoon and post https://lnkd.in/gkd7quFW I’ve always liked this insight from Seth Godin: “If failure is not an option, then neither is success.” Organizations can spot the risks of a new idea a mile away. But there’s a curious blind spot when it comes to the risks of not taking those risks. The path of least resistance is to play it safe and keep as close to the tried-and-true as possible. I stumbled across an interesting HBR article from Bill Taylor called “Playing It Safe Is Riskier Than You Think”. In it, he writes about an analogy of risk first framed by two business professors 35 years ago. “Executives and entrepreneurs face two very different sorts of risks. One is that their organization will make a bold move that failed — a risk they call ‘sinking the ship.’ The other is that their organization will fail to make a bold move that would have succeeded — a risk they call ‘missing the boat.’ “Naturally, most executives worry more about sinking the boat than missing the boat, which is why so many organizations, even in flush times, are so cautious and conservative. To me, though, the opportunity for executives and entrepreneurs is to recognize the power of rocking the boat — searching for big ideas and small wrinkles, inside and outside the organization, that help you make waves and change course.” When we’re leading a project, particularly at a large company, I think that’s a big part of our job — to continually find ways to rock the boat. The most remarkable ideas go against the flow. But we don’t want to sacrifice the remarkable parts of the idea for the comfort of a smoother ride. We can’t always change the inherent risk aversion of an organization. But we can rock the boat. For related cartoons and all the links in this post, click here: https://lnkd.in/gkd7quFW To sign up for my weekly marketoon email newsletter, click here: https://lnkd.in/gyWRQBxu

“Thought Leadership” - new cartoon and post https://lnkd.in/gZ8iG9KG In 2008, I brought my team to see Seth Godin speak at an event in London. There was a Q&A at the end, and someone asked Seth how he found time to do all the things he did — write so many books, keep a daily blog, and personally respond to every email he receives. Seth’s answer left an impression on me. He replied something along the lines, “I don’t go to meetings and I’m not on Twitter.” At the time, Twitter was just a year or two old, and it seemed like anyone with aspirations to build and connect with an audience was on Twitter, incessantly. Seth was the most well-known thinker in marketing How could he eschew such an emerging platform? But he described Twitter as a distraction. And instead he decided to focus on a few things that made Seth uniquely Seth — including his daily blog he started in 2002. That’s a rare feat of continuity, made possible to choosing not to do other things that it seemed like everyone else was doing. I think of that exchange whenever I see cookie-cutter advice on how to be a thought leader. Or how to build and grow an audience. The advice often focuses primarily on the where and how (which platforms and what frequency of posting are essential) rather than the what (the message you’re actually trying to convey). Some of the expectations for “feeding the beast” on content creation are super-human, as Mark Ritson described recently: “What is a marketer to do in the face of such numbers? Spend the next 10 years in their underpants trying to come up with something – anything – to say across various platforms every few minutes, while adding inane comments to as many other posts as possible?” This of course is where AI promises to help, And yet the content creation arms race is just part of what Mark Schaefer once described as “content shock”: “the emerging marketing epoch when exponentially increasing volumes of content intersect our limited human capacity to consume it.” Or as Mark Ritson put it: “The digital snake eats its own pixelated tail.” For related cartoons and all the links in this post, click here: https://lnkd.in/gZ8iG9KG To sign up for my weekly marketoon email newsletter, click here: https://lnkd.in/gyWRQBxu #marketing #cartoon #marketoon

“Future of AI” - new cartoon and post https://lnkd.in/gnW9fg5Y It’s hard to read the tea leaves on the future of work with AI. There are such wild extremes between the predictions of techno-utopian boosters and techno-dystopian doomers. It’s exciting and scary at the same time and no one really knows how this will go. I keep coming back to HBS professor Karim Lakhani’s oft-quoted observation from last year: “AI is not going to replace humans, but humans with AI are going to replace humans without AI.” I’ve written a lot about the business adoption of Generative AI and the famous Gartner Hype cycle for emerging technology. In June, I spoke about this at Gartner’s CMO Symposium about the awkward adolescence of AI. We’re at a transition point as “The Peak of Inflated Expectations” gives way to “The Trough of Disillusionment.” The Upwork Research Institute released a fascinating study a couple weeks ago on the current state of AI at work in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. The study illustrates the tension of this transition point. The hype has been high: “96% of C-suite leaders say they expect the use of AI tools to increase their company’s overall productivity levels. Already, 39% of companies in our study are mandating the use of AI tools, with an additional 46% encouraging their use.” Yet the results in practice have been wanting: “Nearly half (47%) of employees using AI say they have no idea how to achieve the productivity gains their employers expect, and 77% say these tools have actually decreased their productivity and added to their workload.” In the meantime, I think it’s important to keep the conversation going about the nature of work itself. Productivity isn’t the only metric that matters. For related cartoons and all the links in this post, click here: https://lnkd.in/gnW9fg5Y To sign up for my weekly marketoon email newsletter, click here: https://lnkd.in/gyWRQBxu #marketing #cartoon #marketoon

“Corporate Apology” - new cartoon and post https://lnkd.in/gWAVvmM5 The recent CrowdStrike debacle gives lessons for all of us in how to (and how not to) communicate in a crisis. The initial tweeted response from CEO George Kurtz fell flat, as panned by comms expert Davia Temin: “This is a response scrubbed by a legal team with lawsuits in mind. It holds little to no accountability, which is what makes apologies so powerful. And it positions Kurtz almost as an AI voice — automated, soulless. In fact, ChatGPT does a better job of appearing to care than he does.” A bundled attempt to apologize to partners with a gift card didn’t help, as captured in this PCGamer headline: “After crashing 8.5 million computers, CrowdStrike says sorry to its partners with a $10 Uber Eats gift card, which was also broken.” Ultimately and eventually, the company found its way to a full-throated apology, but the early missteps made a bad situation worse. As Ben Horowitz wrote in “The Hard Thing About Hard Things:” “If you are going to eat shit, don’t nibble.” While an extreme case, CrowdStrike illustrates some of the tensions at play in any brand crisis — trying to balance responsibility and mitigate liability with incomplete information while still trying to fix the issue. The path of least resistance is a Mad Libs corporate apology that satisfies no one. Far more effective than an apology is an amend. It’s not just about saying sorry — it’s about taking responsibility to make things right. What’s at stake is everything invested in building a brand in the first place. As CrowdStrike CSO Shawn Henry put it, “The confidence we built in drips over the years was lost in buckets within hours.” For related cartoons and all the links in this post, click here: https://lnkd.in/gWAVvmM5 To sign up for my weekly marketoon email newsletter, click here: https://lnkd.in/gyWRQBxu #marketing #cartoon #marketoon

“Brand Storytelling, Showmanship, and Salesmanship” - new cartoon and post https://lnkd.in/gjVZA8DZ Brand storytelling is one of the most wildly overused (and least understood) buzzwords of marketing. It’s often casually used without discretion to describe just about any type of marketing communication. Years ago, I visited the Portland studio of Character, which helped pioneer storytelling as a framework for brands, and chatted with Jim Hardison and David Altschul. Part of what they do is separate what distinguishes a story from mere information. One of the key principles they talk about is “Conflict.” Marketing teams are sometimes shy to consider conflict, but conflict is essential in a story. As they put it: “Conflict is the engine that makes the story go. A story doesn’t start until a conflict begins and doesn’t end until it’s over. Conflict creates an immediate emotional connection that hooks the audience and maintains their interest … The first step in articulating your brand’s story is to get a handle on the conflicts that drive it.” I’ve been thinking about “brand storytelling” in the context of two conversations last month with Orlando Wood at System 1 and Les Binet, who I finally had an opportunity to meet in person. Orlando introduced me to the idea of two distinct types of advertising — “showmanship” and “salesmanship.” Showmanship is more related to longer-term brand-building and salesmanship is more related to shorter-term direct-response. Ultimately brands need both, as Les Binet famously argued with Peter Field in “The Long and the Short of It.” They advocated a 60:40 rule of thumb — with 60% of advertising spend placed in brand-building (the “show”) and 40% in performance marketing (the “sale”). In a recent panel with Orlando at Adam&eveDDB, Les said: “Where I think we get it wrong is when we want to do both jobs at the same time. Brands make that mistake of trying to do the brand stuff at the point of purchase. They’re different jobs.” For related cartoons and all the links in this post, click here: https://lnkd.in/gjVZA8DZ To sign up for my weekly marketoon email newsletter, click here: https://lnkd.in/gyWRQBxu #marketing #cartoon #marketoon

“Idea Killers” - new cartoon and post https://lnkd.in/gkv356FY Labeling an idea polarizing can be the quickest way to kill an idea. Businesses usually avoid ideas that are polarizing, whether new products or campaigns. It’s always easier to launch the next flavor of vanilla. But there’s power in polarization. By trying to appeal to everyone, you won’t necessarily appeal to anyone in particular. In a world of clutter, the last effect a brand can afford to create is indifference. Many product categories turn into a sea of sameness over time. But it’s hard to out-vanilla vanilla. Guy Kawasaki, chief evangelist of Canva and early Apple exec, once suggested: “Don’t be afraid to polarize people. Most companies want to create the holy grail of products that appeals to every demographic, social-economic background, and geographic location. To attempt to do so guarantees mediocrity. Instead, create great products that make segments of people very happy. And fear not if these products make other segments unhappy. The worst case is to incite no passionate reactions at all, and that happens when companies try to make everyone happy.” I often draw cartoons about the challenges of navigating idea killers because I think that’s where some of the most important work happens. There are many ways to kill or water down ideas and it’s always easier to critique than create. The path of least resistance leads to work that is dull and unremarkable. It takes a lot of effort to run the gauntlet of idea killers to prevent that from happening. For related cartoons and all the links in this post, click here: https://lnkd.in/gkv356FY To sign up for my weekly marketoon email newsletter, click here: https://lnkd.in/gyWRQBxu #marketing #cartoon #marketoon

While cartoonist-in-residence drawing and living with the System1 crew at Cannes Lions, I sat down with Jon Evans on Uncensored CMO to talk about why humor is good for business. I hope you enjoy this conversation — we cover everything from the importance of laughing at ourselves in the workplace to some of the most popular cartoons I’ve ever drawn to the 5-day series I drew for Cannes Lions. https://lnkd.in/gw2eyEFH #marketing #cartoons #marketoons Kerry Collinge Orlando Wood Adam Morgan

“Chief Buzzword Officer” - new cartoon and post https://lnkd.in/gMkxzNEg One of the most entertaining parts of going to the Cannes Advertising festival for the first time recently was eavesdropping on so much marketing chatter in one place. It was surreal to walk the cobblestone streets past European cafe tables and hear, not French, but snippets of conversation with language like “brand salience” and “mental availability.” It reminded me how easy it is for marketers to slip into a bubble of talking to ourselves. Johnny Corbett wrote a MarketingWeek column on this topic a couple months ago and relayed a funny story of a marketing pitch to Diageo CEO, Paul Walsh. At the end of the buzzword-heavy presentation, Paul responded: “This is all great. But what has any of it got to do with selling bottles?” I had a similar experience early in my marketing career. As an associate marketing manager for a yogurt brand, I was charged with giving a brand update to one of the yogurt factories in rural Michigan. I stood in front of the staff during a production line shift change and went through our marketing plan. It was soon clear to me that I was speaking a different language. The way we talked about marketing and brands to other marketers at headquarters just didn’t translate as well to the factory. The audience in the room was primarily interested how we were going to ramp up sales to keep more production lines and more shifts running in the factory. My buzzword-heavy brand plans didn’t cut it. It was a good lesson for me to get out of the marketing ivory tower more often and not take ourselves too seriously. And try not to lose sight of the big picture of what we do. For related cartoons and all the links in this post, click here: https://lnkd.in/gMkxzNEg To sign up for my weekly marketoon email newsletter, click here: https://lnkd.in/gyWRQBxu #marketing #cartoon #marketoon

“Dispatch from Cannes Lions ’24” - Day 5 cartoon Here’s the final cartoon installment from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this week. System1 invited me to sketch a daily cartoon based on what I see here. This one is about the transition back to regular work at the end. Even if you haven’t been to this festival, hopefully you can relate to the return experience after any sort of creative retreat. Creativity is ultimately not about the inspiration or ideas — it’s about how you bring them to life. Championing truly creative work usually involves running a gauntlet. It’s very easy to settle for safer versions of creative execution. But too many compromises can water down the result to nothing. One of my earliest cartoons reimagined Isaac Newton under the apple tree and what happens after the apple drops and inspiration strikes. Each frame has chomps taken out of the apple until what is left is applesauce. We all have to fight against Newton’s applesauce. Several of my conversations this week touched on this universal challenge in creative work. I hope you’ve enjoyed this Cannes cartoon series. Thank you again to System1 for hosting me this week. If you’ve liked the series, keep an eye out for a fun Uncensored CMO podcast interview I recorded with Jon Evans Evans on the role that humor plays in a creative culture. #marketing #cartoon #canneslions #marketoon Orlando Wood Kerry