Marketing on a shoestring

23 years ago I boarded a train in Beijing that was heading towards Paris via Ulan Bator,Moscow, Warsaw , East – and West – Berlin, then Maubeuge. Think Soviet Moscow, with the first Macdo on Poutine Square which was a tourist viewpoint , Jaruzelski Poland. That trip taught me everything I ever wanted to know about marketing. Today, I am boarding a plane towards Lilongwe, Malawi, via Nairobi. It may well be my refresher’s course.
The advantage of trips that last more than 12 hours is that they leave you time to think, to look and to feel what is happening around you. Waiting in airports or train stations, without mentioning motorway rest areas, is one of the best observation point there is. Beats any focus group for sure. Most times, it is an observation point from which one stands and watches as opposed to being a part of the crowd. But that is where my Transiberian and malawi extravaganza differ. I am sitting in row 28 on Kenya Airways and trust me, this is as much in the middle of the plane as I want to be. No fancy shmancy food menu for me today. 23 years ago, I even had no idea there was a business class anyway. And i thought anything above 2nd class was luxury. Little did I know that first class in the Chinese Transiberian was just below deluxe and 2 seater wagon…and just above wooden benches. Scotty beam me up back to my youth!
On both trip, I can feel that insisting knot that freezes my brain and whispers…what is around the corner? what does it look like on the other side? How do I call for a taxi, make friends, what food will I eat, will it make me really sick? Did I take the right clothes? Do I have enough money? As i think of myself as the proud product f a multiracial family, how will I face the “real deal”, where those who surrounds me do not look like me and have no clue that grandmother of mine was black?
It challenges everything I know and leaves you hanging there with the task to find all the answers by yourself. And there is no pre-testing in this world. It is not Livingstone’s survival but close enough to get the thrills of traveling pumping again.
Now, imagine a moment you are in the office, tasked with developing that great new idea that will rock Brazilian’s socks off and get them to rush “en masse” for your nicely packaged profit sweetener. You wrote the concept and someone else translated it so that you do not even have a clue about what you are doing but you will assume somebody else , from a highly qualified research institute, can give you the answers. And you will compare with poland because the demographics are similar enough to draw statistical conclusions. Based on those, you will get the mad men to work. All brought up in the cult of Bernbach and Burnett who did not have a clue what a street market in Campinhas looks like. And you may even have a nice film produced in Uruguay because the purchasing people love Uruguay these days.
Rewind. Invert the roles. become the learner of your “consumers”. It will piss off your partner and your kids because things do not necessarily happen where you sit and you have to go away to learn. By the way, why do we bring our kids up with the love of the world when the only thing we want is for them to live at the end of the road?
That is what I learnt in that train and which comes back to me since I left Panama last night…the best marketing I ever did was when i assumed I knew nothing about what I was looking it. it was easier 15 years ago because…well, I did not know much to be honest. About motherhood when working on Pampers or about breakfast when mine was very often taken in a bar after a long night. I did not assume I knew. so I would question everything…the nagging why? why do we say think visualize things the way we do? is there another way out? What would the Japanese do ( yep I went to business schools in the 80s, China was not yet existing)?
This permanent uncertainty was and still is for me the magic of great marketing. That is when you are not Steve Jobs or Jonathan Ives. Because I have no clue how these guys do it but I have a feeling they would never say they are into marketing anyway.
Voila, this was me and my moment of doubt sitting in Schipol. malawi, here we come.
Good night and good luck