Moving marketing upstream

Let me propose what might at first seem like a slightly odd analogy. I'd like you to imagine that your marketing agenda is a little rowing boat, floating (with you in it) on a gently-flowing river. You have a decent set of oars and sufficient strength to row either with or against the flow. You can furnish the river-banks with wild-flowers and whispering willows if you like, but they're not going to play a part in our story. Nor are ducks.

There are four sections of the river, each representing a different area of marketing. The one closest to the source (furthest upstream) we'll call ‘product’. That's where marketing helps to shape the development of any products or services that your firm offers to its clients. Slightly further downstream is a section called ‘price’ where marketing can influence the price at which products are sold. Next comes ‘distribution’, which for our purposes we'll understand to mean client organisations - both where a relationship already exists and where it doesn't. Lastly, furthest downstream, comes ‘communications’, which is where you tell clients (existing and prospective) about your products, and find snazzy ways to promote those products. You’re perfectly able to row up and down the river all day long, accessing whichever section of it you need, to achieve your marketing objectives. All terribly idyllic so far. Feet up, glass of Pimm’s 'And "cheerio" and "cheeri-bye", across the waste of waters die, and low the mists of evening lie, and lightly skims the midge.' Hang on, who invited John Betjeman into our analogy?

Now I’m going to throw the first bit of menace into the picture. Immediately downstream of the ‘communications’ section of the river, where you might reasonably expect to find the shimmering sea, is a large and frightfully scary waterfall. If your boat falls over the waterfall, it will be smashed. You’ll be fine (we’re not getting into a serious horror story here), but your boat will no longer be of any use at all. That’s no great problem while the river’s flowing gently but things are about to get a bit tricky because way upstream, at the source of the river, is a giant tap which releases water into the river and which we’ll take to mean commoditisation (downward pressure on the price, and increased ease of substitution for, your products). Now imagine the tap being turned on, turning the river from being a lazy, gentle waterway, into a raging torrent (I know, we’re talking a seriously big tap), against which you have no hope of rowing. No longer are you able to row up and down the river at your pleasure; all you can do is control the rate at which you’re being swept downstream.

Eventually, you’re going to end up somewhere near the waterfall, where you’ll discover that the waterfall actually represents complete commoditisation. It’s the point at which there’s really no difference between your product and anyone else’s except the price at which it’s sold. Go over the edge and your marketing agenda is no longer going to be any help. But you’re strong enough to hold your boat upstream of the waterfall for a while, and having ended up there you meet lots of other people who are in the same position. Some have been there a lot longer and learned that the communications section of the river isn’t such a bad place. In fact, all sorts of rather cool people hang out there. There are creative types with thick-rimmed glasses who look as though they could do with a nice bath and an early night, and smarter people, dressed in champagne-drinking clothes, clutching awards. All are very good at making things that aren’t actually very different, sound different.

Everyone has an opinion about the best way to stop their boats being swept over the waterfall: some have decided to make the job easier by inviting new people into their boat to help them row, although one or two have invited so many people that they’ve started sinking. Others are trying to rebuild their boats to make them cut through the water more efficiently, even though that appears to be a hard thing to do with the boat still in the water. Mind you there’s an odd-looking bunch who seem to have decided that the answer is to paint their boat an exciting new shade of red. Compared with them, everyone else’s strategy looks reasonably intelligent. But word has it that the really intelligent people are planning something completely different. They’re trying to find a way to get back upstream and turn the tap off.