Balancing Risks: Hedging Bets in Marketing and Corporate Strategy

The other week, I came across this AdWeek article about Nike’s marketing team’s restructuring, which inevitably piqued my interest. The article linked to a post by Massimo Giunco, former Nike Brand Director, who shared his take on how Nike’s CEO, John Donahue, and Nike’s President of Consumer, Product and Brand, Heidi O’Neill, decided to enact a series of changes between August 2020 through March 2021 to eliminate all categories from the organization, focus entirely on D2C (direct-to-consumer) divesting from wholesale, and shift the marketing model to prioritize digital content generation over brand narrative. According to Giunco, going all-in on this strategy led to record-low performance over the last few quarters, and now that the market cap is at its lowest since 2018, the company is reversing its approach.

While it’s somehow evident that Massimo Giunco has personal issues with Nike’s leadership, his narrative allows us to draw a parallel with the question we often grapple with: how can we invest in something that may yield long-term value like brand building but doesn’t offer good short-term measurability or certainty for success?

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Four Ps

Anyone with a Business or Marketing degree has likely heard of the following framework from the illustrious marketing professor Philip Kotler.

Marketing is the combination of the 4Ps: Price, Product, Promotion, and Place.

While many can agree with it, when we think of Marketing in most companies and business circles, we tend to focus on a subset of one P: Promotion.

If you reacted to the previous sentence by thinking, “Yeah, that’s kind of true,” you may be interested in taking a few minutes to think if your Marketing team is doing everything it’s supposed to do in your company.

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Controversial Marketing Hot-Take #4

In October of last year, I thought of starting a series of posts on controversial marketing hot-takes. I posted one a day for four days straight. This was the fourth and last one. To make it even more entertaining, I've decided to use sports quotes to illustrate my point. "ð˜—ð˜¦ð˜°ð˜±ð˜­ð˜¦ ð˜¸ð˜©ð˜° ð˜³ð˜¶ð˜¯ ð˜£ð˜¢ð˜­ð˜­ 𘤅

Controversial Marketing Hot-Take #3

In October of last year, I thought of starting a series of posts on ð—°ð—¼ð—»ð˜ð—¿ð—¼ð˜ƒð—²ð—¿ð˜€ð—¶ð—®ð—¹ ð—ºð—®ð—¿ð—¸ð—²ð˜ð—¶ð—»ð—´ ð—µð—¼ð˜ ð˜ð—®ð—¸ð—²ð˜€. I posted one a day for four days straight. This was the third one. “ð˜¾ð™§ð™šð™–ð™©ð™žð™«ð™šð™¨ ð™–ð™§ð™š ð™©ð™ð™š ð™—ð™žð™œð™œð™š…

Controversial Marketing Hot-Take #2

In October of last year, I thought of starting a series of posts on ð—°ð—¼ð—»ð˜ð—¿ð—¼ð˜ƒð—²ð—¿ð˜€ð—¶ð—®ð—¹ ð—ºð—®ð—¿ð—¸ð—²ð˜ð—¶ð—»ð—´ ð—µð—¼ð˜ ð˜ð—®ð—¸ð—²ð˜€. I posted one a day for four days straight. This was the second one. "ð™„ð™©'𙨠ð™£ð™¤ð™© ð™–ð™—ð™¤ð™ªð™© ð™®ð™¤ð™ªð™§ ð˜¾ð™ð™Š ð™£ð…