Mia Fileman 0:05
Life's too short for crap marketing. The Got Marketing? Podcast is for marketers, business owners and entrepreneurs who want marketing that's fun, accessible and meaningful. Join me, Mia Fileman for inspired chats with my favorite marketing insiders about marketing that works, campaigns that inspire, and the fads, fakery and false prophets to avoid.
Mia Fileman 0:30
Strategy is scary, but it doesn't have to be. I have frequently said that I am no fan of the 50 page strategy doc with the pretty charts and the graphs that sits in a drawer. Strategy can be elegantly simple. A few years ago, I came across a strategist on Instagram, who I now quote all the time. In fact, my go to definition for strategy is his. He says "strategy is an informed opinion about how to win". His name is Mark Pollard, and he joins me today. Mark is a strategic trainer and the author of strategy is your words. Welcome to Got Marketing.
Mark Pollard 1:13
Thank you for having me.
Mia Fileman 1:14
This is such a pleasure. I have to say I woke up at 5:15am just for this. So I'm very, very excited.
Mark Pollard 1:22
Thank you. Yeah, the New York to Australia timezone, or time zones, are not generous. Not kind.
Mia Fileman 1:28
No, not at all. It's like 17 hours or something crazy. Yeah, it's a lot. Can you start us off with a little bit of background? So you are ex-agency, you've also been dabbling in some hip hop. Can you take us through that, please?
Mark Pollard 1:44
Yeah, sure. So I started in agencies around the age of 20 years working basically exclusively on digital projects. So doing user experience and information architecture for some pretty complex website builds, online training platform for Audi, a bank website for Rabobank. And then, in my late 20s, I joined Leo Burnett in Sydney, where there was a guy that a lot of Australians would know, his name's Todd Sampson, he's on the Gruen Transfer, I think he's got multiple TV shows. Now he's had multiple TV shows since I left Australia. And he sort of ran this experiment. The experiment was, could you take someone who had grown up publishing a music magazine during radio, making websites and convert them into a strategist, an advertising strategist or an account planner. So at Leo Burnett, I had 50% of my time allocated towards digital projects and 50% of my time allocated towards brand or advertising projects for companies like Canon and Amstel, etc. And throughout all that time, mostly, I was continuing to write. I've always written, and so I moved to New York about 12 years ago, in my early to mid 30s. Didn't really click with the agency culture or the corporate culture here, a little conservative, slow self important and very talkative, not always a lot of work show and just I was like, I can't do this, feeling repressed in my personal life, repressed in my professional life. I was lucky to have good titles, visas, you know, salaries, etc. But I just wasn't happy. And so I ended up setting up a company, which eventually morphed into Sweathead. And that's a place where I trained 1000s of people in a year to talk to all over the world, publish this little book through the pandemic, "Strategy is your words". And yeah, that's, that's my life, my adult life.
Mia Fileman 3:35
Oh, amazing. So who are your customers, typically, who enrolls in your strategic training?
Mark Pollard 3:40
People who work in advertising and marketing, it's all the different kinds of agencies, it could be someone who's worked in PR, but they just want some, I guess, more foundational training. So a lot of people kind of do strategy in the industry, but don't feel that they've been trained and might not be working with people who can train them. In the UK, you often hear this phrase, I'm not, or someone isn't a classically trained planner for that phrase a little bit in the US as well. I don't know what that means. But I know that that's a problem that that I helped solve, which is give people a way of working definitions of words and frameworks and techniques that they can use in very practical ways as well. So that's typically who it is, although there are people who are just interested in critical thinking and creativity who would also follow along or maybe do a course or read my book as well.
Mia Fileman 4:29
Yeah, I hear that a lot. I fell into this or I don't have formal qualifications. I'm not a classically trained marketer. And that comes with a lot of self doubt. And I think, and I think you think because I've saved this post on your Instagram, that you can't outsource your confidence, you have to in-house your confidence. And so building those skills by doing some sort of strategic training from someone like you is going to help you grow that confidence.
Mark Pollard 4:56
Yeah, I agree. It's gonna be super weird if you quote me to me, because because when you do stuff like podcasts or when you write, publish online publishing books, you have to spend a lot of time with yourself, and you're in your head a lot, right? And so and then you put these things into the world, and you hope that they find an audience. And when they do, that's amazing. But also, when that audience talks to you about the stuff or quotes, things, it's quite surreal. It's a little out of body. But I mean, that's, that's the goal. So thank you. But it's also gonna be weird if you keep doing that, keep doing it, keep doing it. Like it, we don't do whatever you want. I'm not your boss.
Mia Fileman 5:32
Hey, mate, this is my show, I do what I want.
Mark Pollard 5:36
Yes, mate.
Mia Fileman 5:39
So, sorry.
Mark Pollard 5:40
That the confidence thing, whenever I struggled in the industry, or run my own business, like you, you just have to often take more responsibility, I feel. You could get rid of responsibility. You could sit on your hands, you could take a year sabbatical, you could do yoga, you can meditate. They're all fine as coping mechanisms, or even as strategies, really. But I've just found that if I'm frustrated, usually it helps to take more responsibility if you can. So if you're in an agency, that's not winning pitches, maybe you should stick your hand up to run a few of the pitches, but to really own it. In business, if things aren't quite clicking, you can't literally can't go backwards and you can't not do anything, you have to launch the next thing. And over time, that becomes, it becomes easier, it's not that it becomes easy, but it becomes easier. And the fear and the anxiety, all that stuff's always there. But you can compartmentalize it a little bit better. Because you know, you've got to write the next book, you've got to launch the next course, you got to put on an event. You have to. So there's a certain force, momentum, velocity that is available to you as soon as you start to take more responsibility for the things that frustrate you. It's not easy, but that's where I'm at these days.
Mia Fileman 6:58
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's old as time but this idea that knowledge is power, is that you can't as you said, you can't sit on your hands. So what are you going to do. For me, I draw a lot of confidence from upskilling and education, I always have. But that might be different for other people, they might not feel the same level of confidence when it comes to upskilling. And it might be something else that works for them. But it means it can't hurt to give this a crack. Right?
Mark Pollard 7:27
Totally.
Mia Fileman 7:27
All right. So let's go back to what is strategy? And that definition of strategy is an informed opinion about how to win. Can you unpack that for me, please?
Mark Pollard 7:40
Yeah, one thing that I want to point out before I talk about that is how often we use jargon, possibly for years and with each other at each other, around each other, under each other without necessarily understanding what we're trying to say, without understanding a shared definition. And so a lot of the work that I've done over the years is like, we use this word all the time, what does it even mean? Strategy, idea, creativity, it's what are these words actually mean? And sometimes I borrow definitions, and sometimes I write them. And it's not that they're necessarily profound and amazing and super useful, but they useful to me. And that's really how I operate.
Mark Pollard 8:17
So strategy as an informed opinion about how to win. The two key bits of that are really the informed opinion. So you need information. But information without an opinion is not useful. And opinion without information is also not useful. It's those two things coming together. And even though it's a little bit jargony, why I like it is because it admits that you're basically guessing the future. But also, your guess needs to have spine, it needs to have an opinion, it needs to have an argument. I see a lot of strategy documents and like, what's your point? What's your argument? And start this start with your argument and only tell me what your argument is. I don't need your your school report. You know, obviously, the winning part is important. But that doesn't have to be win at all costs. It doesn't have to be a zero sum game. But typically, strategy is about improving your situation.
Mia Fileman 9:06
Yeah, improving your odds. And that's exactly what I like about that definition is that a lot of people expect strategy to be an exact science, you know, if I have a marketing strategy, and if I pay 5, 10, $20,000, to a strategist, I'm going to get a strategy that will win. And that is not guaranteed by any stretch of the imagination. And then that beautiful modifier before opinion, informed. Not all opinions are created equal. So who are you going to to get your strategy? Are you going to Instagram with someone that has 100,000 followers, and that is a celebrity entrepreneur, or are you going to somebody who does this work and has for 20 years and understands what makes a meaningful and compelling strategy?
Mark Pollard 9:57
I agree. I don't know which one of those I am by the way, but I agree. Yeah, I don't even I don't know these days. But also, you know, you see a lot of banter online. And I think even within the agency world for the past, especially the past decade, I started to hear some of this discussion a little bit before then. But I feel that a lot the agency world, especially over the past decade has been a little bit in the shadow of a little bit in overall a little bit embarrassed by management consultants, you know, they do they do the strategy, for those of you who are interested in that world is really good book called The laws of strategy. It's a journalist that charts the history of management consultancies, I gotta tell you, they just made stuff up.
Mia Fileman 10:36
Really?
Mark Pollard 10:36
You know, they'd come up with like, the two by two framework that they could sell for 10 years. And as soon as it stops selling, they'd make up another thing and go sell it. Obviously, they bring a lot of information and skills and expertise to the fore. But you know, they're still guessing the future they don't know.
Mia Fileman 10:51
No one knows. Especially post COVID. It's like we are, we are making informed opinions about how to position ourselves for success.
Mark Pollard 11:00
Yeah. And oh, my gosh, how exhausting is that every, every couple of months. I'm like, what's gonna happen this quarter? What do we, you know, because we've been watching a lot of courses and I'm trying to write another book and I'm like Oh, my God, what's gonna happen next month, what's gonna happen next year. It's, it's a privilege to do this. But it's not without stresses in this kind of environment.
Mia Fileman 11:19
Absolutely. I've certainly found, I'm an online course creator, as well, that the appetite for online courses has certainly dried up since the pandemic.
Mark Pollard 11:28
Yep.
Mia Fileman 11:29
Have you experienced the same thing?
Mark Pollard 11:30
Yeah, well, you notice that a lot of creators in 2020 started to launch online courses. But you can't do that unless you're really successful, really rich and got a team doing it for you. Or it has to be kind of part of your life, it has to be really central to your life. And a lot of that started drop off about 12 months ago, I think, 12 to 24 months ago, there was this big edtech crash in India. So they had all these massive companies that kind of just crashed. And then this year, subscriptions are drying up a little bit. I do stuff with Skillshare, also my own platform, but even Skillshare is sending out emails about you know, subscription fatigue, and online course fatigue and all this kind of stuff. So yeah, a lot of us are feeling the effects of it. That's why it helps to have a flywheel for your IP, you know, so my book, is has a course I do talks I've been in, I don't know, 10 countries, talking and teaching 1000s of people this year, couldn't do that in 2020, everything disappeared. So that's, that's why for the sort of content or educational entrepreneur, it helps to have different revenue streams, because it can complicate your life, it could stress you make your website more complicated, cause a lot of pain websites, oh, my god, especially WordPress, but multiple revenue streams are definitely useful.
Mia Fileman 12:42
Yeah,
Mark Pollard 12:43
keep you going.
Mia Fileman 12:43
I think this is such an important message to the listeners. We've already gone off track, but that's okay. Well, we'll go back. In terms of what it takes to be a successful online course creator in 2023. There is a lot of false narratives around at the moment around how you can just jump straight into that leveraged income space without having cut your teeth as a service provider or as ex-agency or ex-corporate, you know, people who have never run businesses before diving in, getting an expensive Kajabi subscription, and starting to sell online courses. And then finding zero enrollments, like zero, absolutely none. And it is, you know, I look at people like you, even people like me, I've been working in marketing 20 years. And yes, I'm a successful online course creator, but it was like sticking needles in my eyes for the first two years.
Mark Pollard 13:36
Yeah,
Mia Fileman 13:36
It was, it is so hard. It is the hardest sell I've ever had to sell. And that is really saying something.
Mark Pollard 13:44
Yeah, books and courses, to state something totally obvious and true, books and courses don't sell themselves. But it can take you years to build up an energy, an audience, a following whatever you want to call it that you can launch stuff to. You can't come out of nowhere, unless you happen to go viral on Tiktok. Like the lady who was teaching Excel techniques on Tik Tok, she blew up and was really successful, I think using the Thinkific platform. But it's very hard. You need years, potentially of a network of an email newsletter all of these things. So I agree.
Mia Fileman 14:17
Yeah, you need the audience. Otherwise, the audience would always prefer to work with someone one on one or to outsource it fully. Don't tell me how to do it, just just do it for me. The course requires investment from them, they actually need to do the work. And so that is a much harder sell, which is why you need the ready made platform for them to buy from.
Mark Pollard 14:37
Yeah, absolutely.
Mia Fileman 14:38
All right. So let's go back. How can someone approach strategy in a way that is not, you know, going to make their head fly off their shoulders? What is your way of doing strategy, simply but also effectively?
Mark Pollard 14:53
Yeah, and let's situate the word strategy in the context of advertising, although the way I'll like to work and like the kind of ideas that I like to come up with, they could be at the heart of a business strategy as well. But just for the sake of ease, let's sort of situate it within advertising. Or you could situate it within marketing, but definitely within advertising. So I came up with this little framework, called the four points, read a book about it, teach it all the time. And what that's really about is four sentences on a page. Now, there are lots of other frameworks, I use them, I think about them. But I kind of liked the four points because it starts by focusing on the problem that we need to solve. There are lots of types of problems in the world. And in this kind of work. When I'm using that word, I define it as essentially, a barrier or the barrier or the obstacle that's in the way of someone doing something or buying something. Then we have an insight. One of the most overused, misused words, everyone fights about this word online all the time, it's quite funny. A lot of people don't, a lot of people believe that you don't need an insight to make effective advertising. And that can be true and can be true, I liked them. And so for me, and insight in the four points framework is an unspoken human truth that sheds new light on the problem. I want to see the insight open up the problem. It's a little bit of an abstract thought, but it's sort of the insight, I use them to reframe, to pierce open the problem, also abstract. And then we have the advantage, which is, you know, what makes your brand unique and motivating in people's minds, although there's also a debate about about that, because what that is talking about is differentiation. And obviously, there's pretty well known research out of Australia from the Ehrenberg bass Institute, that goes back and forth between Australia and the UK about how differentiation doesn't matter as much as distinctiveness. So again, that's one of these things that people fight about online only in Australia and in the UK, really. And then you've got strategy
Mark Pollard 16:54
So you've got problem, insight, advantage and strategy, which is, the way I define it, is a new way of seeing your brand based on the insight and the advantage clashing together. So lots of different ways to to come up with creative briefs and to write advertising strategy. But I like the four points. And when I was using other frameworks like the four C's, for example, having at Leo Burnett in Sydney bought into the idea that our work is supposed to solve problems, adding things like problems to the four C's, it just started to feel a little cumbersome, you sort of had this framework sprawling, and I was like, no, let's just simplify that and see if it works. And I find it useful in life. I find it useful for advertising and brands.
Mia Fileman 17:32
Yeah, I find it extremely useful ever since I saw it, I tried using it. And I found it really, really useful. And then I introduced it to our students in Campaign Classroom. And they are not strategists, and don't necessarily come from a marketing background. So they have gotten stuck on the buckets, what goes where, you know, oh, that's the problem versus the insight, or that's actually the strategy versus the advantage. So I would, I'd love if you could take us through the four points again, and help to really clarify what needs to go where and is it so important that the right thing goes, where. Does that make sense?
Mark Pollard 17:32
Yeah, totally, you know, just finished a four week accelerator. So I've marked all this work and had 60 Students take it and I'm pretty familiar with where people get stuck. The first one is the problem feels like an insight. And I publish stuff online and people will correct me and how I use my own framework, which I always find really, really funny.
Mia Fileman 18:35
Oh, isn't the internet a beautiful place, Mark.
Mark Pollard 18:38
You know, I don't get it too bad. To be honest, relatively speaking. A lot of people get worse, but every now and then it's just funny. Gonna correct me and how I use my own framework. I invented my own game, and I'm playing it, like what?
Mark Pollard 18:52
Problems, main issues there, they feel like criticism, they feel negative, so people tend to avoid them. That's one point. The second point is, they will feel insightful because what I'm looking for is something that I haven't heard before. That seems revealing. So the problem will feel like an insight, but it's not an insight because of how I define the word problem. The problem in the framework is the reason that someone's not buying something. It's the obstacle or the barrier. So that's relatively straightforward.
Mark Pollard 19:21
Insights about people, their main issue, my two main issues with the insight that I often see, one is just not that interesting. You know, push a little bit deeper, people spend so much time trying to sound like a strategist writing with heightened intellectual language rather than writing closer to how they speak. So that's that's one issue. The second issue is that thematically, there might be something chunky and provocative in the problem and all of a sudden with the insight, the Insight seems completely disconnected. There's a different set of language different, you know, theme coming through so that's where things start to fall apart. Or third problem with the inside is that people might talk about the company or the brand in the insight, which is not how I use it, you can do whatever you want.
Mark Pollard 20:02
Then with the advantage, relatively straightforward there, I think the main issue with the advantage, which is defining what's unique and motivating about the brand is that maybe the theme disappears again, you know, I try to bring a theme through these, these frameworks, which is usually a word or two, or a word or two plus the opposite words or two. So there might not be a lateral leap in the advantages, I like to see a little lateral leap or an idea in each sentence. And then strategy, I usually write it in the format of show that x is y. And I want to see the theme coming through on what the strategy statement or feel like a crescendo. We're using the word strategy in slightly different ways every, every time that we're referring to it right now. But really, what I'm focusing on there is a strategy statement, and I want it to have an idea, some kind of energy, provocative, I want to feel like, Ooh, I haven't heard it that way before. I haven't seen it like that before.
Mark Pollard 20:55
And then the final thing I'll say, that doesn't really matter. Where you start with a framework, I'll typically dig into the problem. But sometimes, you know, the problem could be the advantage, which could be the strategy. You know, there's a pretty nice campaign out of Iceland for Iceland tourism, where the problem that they're obviously trying to solve is there's nothing to do in Iceland. So why would I go there, that's the problem. But that could also be an advantage. There's nothing to do here. And that led to this campaign of people going to iceland, well, the campaign shows people in Iceland, shouting, getting their stress out because of the pandemic, just being super stressed. Okay, so it's not really about a dot to dot situation, sometimes the problem is a word or two away from the strategy. Sometimes you might start with the advantage is there just prompts you know, you still got to do the critical thinking rather than treating it like it's a form to fill in.
Mia Fileman 21:46
Absolutely. That is fantastic. That was so helpful. What we found, and I don't know if this is helpful to you, with our students is that the insight was a statistic, rather than an insight, and there is a difference.
Mark Pollard 22:00
Yeah. That's okay. You know, there's, there's an example. I'll get the statistic wrong. But I like this. I like this example. So in research about altruism, and charitable giving, so giving money to charities, donations, there is a piece of research, I don't know if this has been repeated, whether it holds up, still holds up. But there was a piece of research that said a percentage of couples who argue about how much to donate tend to donate more. Now, that's pretty insightful. And I think it's an insight, but then it's got a statistic in it. But then you might ask, Well, why is that the case? And it turns out that it's because they both want to invest. And then when one wants to conquer the other person, they want to feel better about themselves. So that person will tend to donate more. But the statistic there is insightful, but saying saying 55% of people buy insurance for peace of mind that that's not insightful.
Mia Fileman 22:56
Exactly. That's because you went one step down into the human truth, right? What is the statistic tell us about humans and our flaws? That is the insight. And it was that second part, which was that the couples want to one up each other? Right?
Mark Pollard 23:14
Yeah. Yeah. Because they're competing, and one wants to feel victorious.
Mia Fileman 23:17
Yeah, no that doesn't sound at all familiar.
Mark Pollard 23:21
And that just that one sentence, or that one thought could lead to a campaign where you try to get couples argue about how much to donate, you know, so again, where that would fit on the four points almost doesn't matter. Is it useful? Could you use it? Yeah.
Mia Fileman 23:33
Absolutely.
Mia Fileman 23:35
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Mia Fileman 24:19
Okay, and then what else I see. I loved what you said about how it's just not interesting. I specifically see that when it comes to the advantage, it's not unique, and it's not motivating. It's like, yeah, I help people live their best lives. That's nice. You could be anybody. That's yeah, that is not a form of differentiation or distinctiveness. Right?
Mark Pollard 24:43
Well, correct. I mean, distinct. It could lead to something that's distinctive, right? Because distinctiveness is largely about having distinctive brand assets. So characters, songs, maybe smells, colors, mnemonic devices, memory devices, and bringing them to life and really creative ways, ways that get our attention, and then keep our attention. So that could lead to something distinctive, but it's not interesting. And that sort of writing is really, really common. That's like this empowerment genre of writing. As soon as someone opens up a strategy document, they think they have to sound like that best version of me, best life or this sort of stuff. I've seen that hundreds of times. It's just not interesting.
Mia Fileman 25:21
I think it skips over. We have, we've been told, especially in small business, that you need to focus on the transformation in your messaging, in your words, and instead of telling people what the benefit is, and telling people what it is, just tell them how it solves a problem for them. But then, as a result, we have become very nonconformist in our messaging, and we're using things like live your best life and, you know, increase your profits. And these sort of very broad sweeping platitudes, as opposed to: Yes, but what is on the box? What's on the label? What exactly? How are you doing that? And I'm seeing that commonly amongst small business marketing messaging.
Mark Pollard 26:06
Yeah, it's copycat stuff. And a lot of that empowerment language is what people use. And it frustrates me. You know, for example, I see people on television saying, you know, we just launched some kind of startup and we want to empower women. And I'm like, Okay, well, how? That's what's interesting, not that you want to empower women. Because that kind of language, and that genre of writing can actually, to me at least, seem kind of patronizing to the audience. Who you to empower a group of people? A little bit of a god complex there. But also, it's just not specific.
Mia Fileman 26:39
It's not specific. Yeah, that's my beef with that, for sure. Totally. Okay. And then problem is the obstacle insights are about people needs to be interesting. Advantage has to be something that's unique. And then the strategy should have an idea. So what we see is that, and this is, you know, because we work with people who are not strategists, they will often use a channel or a tactic as the strategy. Yeah, but what you're saying is strategies, your words, right, it is the actual words that you write. So can you elaborate on that?
Mark Pollard 27:21
Yeah. So what's an ide? An idea is at least two topics coming together: topic a, topic B. And you want to see that clearly written in a strategy statement, because that will organize everything to come. So for example, something that I often use is for the New York Knicks, which is a New York basketball team, which has not done that well. They're doing okay now, but that they weren't doing very well for a very, very long time. And the strategy statement that I wrote in a joking way, is will show that the New York Knicks (topic a), New York Knicks topic a, are the best anger management in town best is a weak word, but whatever I kept it in. So you got topic a New York Knicks, topic B anger management. And what that is trying to say is, yeah, we're probably not going to win, but you can come yell your lungs out, and it'll feel a little bit like anger therapy, I guess, right? Then you would work out the tactics potentially, or you would also probably look for a campaign idea. And then the tactics, but at least you've got an idea and a strategy. And I'm not talking about a campaign idea. And the strategy, I'm talking about idea in a secular way to topics coming together to create new meaning new value, that will organize everything to come, as opposed to a lot of what I see is a strategy could be a list of principles, you know, be shareable, be memorable, or it's a list of tactics and deliverables. You know, we're gonna make. Our strategy is to make three videos and to set up on Amazon, blah, blah, blah. And so, they're the tactics, they're the activities that will bring your strategy to life. But what's the thing in the middle that's holding it all together?
Mia Fileman 28:49
What are you going to say in the videos? Right?
Mark Pollard 28:52
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that too.
Mia Fileman 28:54
Yeah. What are the videos about? Yeah, if you had to describe the video, How would you describe the video? What is the video? What is that?
Mark Pollard 29:01
Yeah, yeah.
Mia Fileman 29:03
For sure. Yeah.
Mia Fileman 29:04
Well, I think this tool is absolutely brilliant. And I did it exactly how you suggested well, just suggested. I actually started with campaigns that I liked. And then I went back and tried to reverse engineer the four points to see if I could see how those strategists got to the campaign idea that they did. So I did it for Duolingo. And, yeah, it worked brilliantly. So I'm super keen on hearing.
Mia Fileman 29:33
Yeah
Mia Fileman 29:33
yeah. Well, but I'm also on tag me. What's that? Sorry. We're getting through them, if you want, are going through them if you want. Yeah, actually, do you know what I would love to do is share one that Lauren Pickering did.
Mia Fileman 29:49
So she is an absolutely brilliant marketer. We worked together at L'Oreal and she used the four points on Vilinis, which is In Lithuania, for the tourism body and she came up with a problem. Lithuania is a small and forgotten European country, nobody knows of its capital Vilinis. Like if you were to ask somebody, what's the where is Vilinis? No one would have any idea. So the insight that she came up with was that visiting somewhere, not others haven't gives you bragging rights and social credibility. And then the advantage that Lithuania has is that they have obscurity despite 700 years of history. And so then the strategy that she came up with was make your way to Vilinis before it becomes a not so hidden gem.
Mark Pollard 30:40
Yeah, that rings true. It's funny, because I've literally been traveling a little bit. Well, I've done two talks in two different places with a guy who's Peruvian and lives in Lithuania, and often shares work from Vilnius, including the g spot campaign, which is very famous where some of his students came up with this idea to try to sell Lithuania as the g spot of Europe. And apparently, this idea was sitting in their portfolio for a while someone found that put it online or tweeted or something and then it went a little bit viral and and was effective.
Mark Pollard 31:14
That makes sense. I think that holds well. Yeah, not so hidden gem before it becomes not so hidden gem that makes sense. You're talking about obscurity, bragging rights. Yeah. Thematically, that's all connected, you know, get there before it becomes famous before there are lines, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I was watching a video about Vilnius on on the weekend. It's it's beautiful. I want to go.
Mia Fileman 31:33
Yeah. And I think that it really speaks to the insight about how people want to be that person that discovers a place, you know, or you went to Phuket. Oh, that's nice, you know? So did everyone like it? Just it's almost very basic bitch now to be like, Yeah, I went to Phuket. Yeah. Whereas if you're like, Oh, I went to Turkey, just like, oh, where's the house? I will that's in the Cook Islands. Oh, amazing. What was that like? Oh, it's incredible. You have to go it is just it's such a hidden gem. Okay, so, strategy versus creativity. On your LinkedIn, you've got a banner that says strategy work is creative work. What do you mean?
Mark Pollard 32:14
Well, I go back through the definitions of this. And the reason that I promote that thought a little bit. It's not not original to me, necessarily. But I just remember working in advertising, feeling like I was creative. And I'm publishing magazines, putting on music events, releasing music, I'm doing all this stuff. I feel creative, but there's a creative department. So who am I to feel creative. And that's something that a lot of people in marketing and in agencies experience, the way that I get there is really by defining the words. So what is creativity? To me, creativity is the act of having ideas and putting them into the world. What are ideas, ideas are at least two topics coming together to create new meaning. And the strategist does that they conduct research, they find out things, they look for patterns, and they try to create new meaning. Now, what I'm not saying is that the strategist job is to do the job of a creative department. That's not what I'm saying. But what I am pointing people to is really the ideas of good nonfiction writing, you know, you can pick up a great nonfiction book read a nonfiction essay people you follow on TikTok, stand up comedians, who are brilliant stand up comedians, they'll all land sentences. That's why they get our attention and keep our attention. They'll all land sentences, where they're bringing a couple of topics together in a way that gets you to see yourself or the world around you differently. That's really what I'm trying to get at there. I know a lot of people are like, Nah, strategists, they're not creative, but we're not talking about it. In the same way, I would understand what that person means, the person who would deny that a strategist is creative. But for me, I think that role is more powerful, if you acknowledge that their creative spirits often not always, but often. But then you also need to let that person know that their job is not to undermine or do the job of the creative team if there is a creative team involved.
Mia Fileman 34:03
So in my world, having a strategist and having a creative is a massive privilege because usually we are talking about a business owner, predominantly female who is doing all of those things and 10 more
Mark Pollard 34:15
Yeah,
Mia Fileman 34:15
and so why can't a strategist be creative? I consider myself to be a creative strategist.
Mark Pollard 34:22
Yeah. And so to me, that's a tautology. I remember when I first heard that title, creative strategist, it was probably nearly 20 years ago, I was like, Oh, I wouldn't mind that title. And then over a year or two I was like, Well, if I believe that strategy is creative, then putting the word creative in front of it, I don't know, I don't know if it really helps. But you know, I struggled with the title account planner. It's the English title like what the hell's that? But but I think how you define yourself is totally up obviously, totally up to you. But in the advertising process or on the marketing process, it's just important to allow yourself to switch modes so that the strategy mode is probably more non fiction. And then they count the campaign mode if you're the creative strategist coming up with a brand platform or an advertising idea campaign idea. It's not that that's fiction and nonfiction, but it's has a different energy to it. And what I find interesting, sometimes I'll have a creative directors, executive creative directors take my courses, they sometimes struggle with that. And what their solution is, is to make the strategy boring, so that they can come up with a really good idea. Whereas I want them to put energy into the strategy, I want it to be exciting and interesting and to feel creative. But for it to not feel like an advertising campaign idea. So I know they're sort of in the weeds a little bit, but how you how you identify a super important. High five to you.
Mia Fileman 35:47
To me, it's not about making that all strategists are creative, it's that I'm a particular style of strategist who can also do the creative. And that comes out of sheer necessity of being a small business owner. You know, we don't live in agency land where we have a team of people to do it. But I believe, as someone who does get paid to come up with campaign ideas for a living, that your campaign ideas are only as good as your strategy. It's only as good as those insights and those frameworks that you may or may not use. And you know, those audience conversations, getting on the phone to customers to really understand what it is that they want in order to inform that nonfiction, creative idea. So that's why I am happy with the term creative strategist, because I don't write marketing strategies, I come up with campaign ideas. But I do that from a strategic perspective.
Mark Pollard 36:45
Ignore any and all of my posts that argue that.
Mia Fileman 36:47
No, I mean, I believe in a marketplace of ideas, and I don't need to have people I agree with all the time. I mean, look at Mark Ritson. You know, he is the angriest, most just, you know, like, shade throwing human, but I do agree with a lot of what he says and I disagree with a lot of what he says and that's and that's okay, that's fine. Right?
Mark Pollard 37:13
Totally.
Mia Fileman 37:14
Okay, so tell me about the book. Strategy is your words. Why should people read it? What's in it?
Mark Pollard 37:21
Yeah, so split in two. The first half is kind of this absurdist, unhinged look inside the strategist's brain. So you know, investigate things like the imposter syndrome, or the imposter phenomenon, feeling like a lone wolf, clarity versus confusion. And there's, I don't know, 10 or 12 topics that I investigate. And the second half of the book is basically how I would work using the four point. So a lot of exercises, techniques, frameworks within frameworks, and that sort of stuff. And I think for someone who does this kind of work, the thing that I love to hear the most is when someone says, it's the first time I've seen myself in a book, I wanted the books, I feel like it was inside people's heads, you know, because I'm a little bit older than a lot of the people that I teach these days. And I've been in a lot of situations, a lot of stressful situations in various countries, various cities. And so I, I feel I can write, I can write and have written from the frontlines of, of experiences that maybe other people have every now and then, but often might feel that they're the only ones having it at the time. And so I think, psychologically, and philosophically, there's some use to the book. And then if you'd like to do the work that we're talking about, the second half is pretty practical, less less weird. pretty practical, but I love it when because every now and then I'll get a review or I'll see someone talk about it. And the first half of the book is, it's a bit strange for some people, especially the sort of more logically hardened, low empathy kind of person. So yeah, it's been interesting to see the response to it.
Mia Fileman 38:56
It's a fantastic book, I highly recommend it. I talk about it at most conferences. I'm like, Alright, start here. Read the book, then then then come back. What about for people who say they can't write? Alright, so you're saying that strategy is your words, it's all about the words that you choose. Don't use, you know, poindexter words and jargon words and words that you think sound cool, just use plain spoken words that get and you know, use a thesaurus if you need to, to get to a great word that really encapsulates what you're trying to say. What if someone says but I'm not a writer, not good with words?
Mark Pollard 39:33
I think that's a bit of a problem, because I know everybody's a little bit different. But writing helps you think so if you've sort of given up on the act of writing, then it can seem like you've probably given up on thinking, therefore, why are we talking? So I think it's really, really important. I think having a writing practice is important. Journaling can be important. I don't do it right now. I've had phases of doing it, but it helps you to connect to yourself. First of all, it's like therapy. For yourself, you'll find ideas and patterns in your own writing. And then to give people an even more practical way to think of words, there's some research about words and which kind of words are most memorable and advertising. It's about getting into the memory. So it would help to understand what kinds of words we get into the memory. I call them pineapple words, the researchers call them monogamous words. So monogamous words are words that don't cheat, words that don't cheat: All that means is they are words that don't have a lot of synonyms. The word pineapple when I say that, sure, we might use it in funny ways, in slang ways. But generally speaking, if I say the word pineapple, we're seeing the fruit. Now, if I say a word like empowerment, or concept, or execution, that's, they're just cloudy words, they're up in the sky, they're big, but what's in them. And so, you know, pineapple words, one and two syllable words are perfect for this kind of work.
Mia Fileman 40:52
That's right. And I think that when we use a word that's really overused, I push my students to come up with a different word just because even though how you write your strategy might not necessarily be the words you end up using in your marketing materials in your campaigns. And so that's the first thing if you if you don't think you're a great writer, then exactly to your point, then the best way to fix that is to write but also, it's not necessarily that what you write is going to be the finished published product, you might end up engaging a copywriter to write what it's going to look like on your campaigns. But also that those words do sometimes end up as the final product, right? I can imagine in your Sriracha example of the four points that you shared that some of those words probably did end up in the campaign idea, because it was so great, like the the actual four point strategy, it was so ready for the campaign idea straight off the back of that, don't you think?
Mark Pollard 41:54
Yeah. So there's some student work by Natalie. Yeah, it can, I just want to be, I always want to be careful that if, again, if I'm working with a creative team, or even if I'm coming up with campaign ideas, which I'll sometimes do, depending on clients, I just don't want to crowd out that part of the process. I want there to be an idea, want there be something provocative, exciting in the strategy, but then I want people to be like, yeah, the New York Knicks, anger management, great, I can take that somewhere. And I still want people to feel that there's a somewhere to go. Now, if you're doing all that work yourself, then, you know, it might matter less to feel the way I do. But I would even if I was doing trying to go through the entire advertising process myself or with a small team, I'd still want to have relatively discreet compartments just to be slightly faithful to the processes. I know it.
Mia Fileman 42:41
Sure. Did Natalie go on to create a campaign for Sriracha? I'd love to know what the what the final product looked like.
Mark Pollard 42:49
No, no, that was just a hypothetical. So that was from our four week accelerator course. And that was just a hypothetical. I've got new hypotheticals some students from a few weeks ago that I'll publish online soon. Yeah, like, you know, I coach and train companies on this kind of stuff. And one of the reasons I kind of left agencies, and I've not solved this problem yet, I just found it so hard to get connectivity between strategy and ideas in the creative department, was one of the reasons that I was just like, what are we even doing here anymore? Just felt like the discipline around conceptual thinking, one, and then conceptual thinking connected to strategy, which I took for granted in Australia. I just didn't find it as common in the US, you know, it's a different, different culture. A lot of people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, that's that was a hypothetical example.
Mia Fileman 43:36
I definitely see what you're saying. I've been I was ex-agency as well. And I've definitely been in creative teams where they just want that idea. That's the idea that they want. And it doesn't matter if there's no strict strategic foundation to it, someone came up with a great idea. And we found a client, we can shoehorn it onto and so here it is rocking and rolling it for this client, as opposed to, hey, is this strategically sound for this client? Or is this just a great idea that you just you want to run with? And you've just found a client that it sort of fits?
Mark Pollard 44:08
Yeah. It's gonna happen. You don't necessarily want to get in the way of that, but if that's all that's happening for a decade or two, you're gonna feel a bit useless.
Mia Fileman 44:16
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Well, it has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you, Mark, do you have any final parting words of wisdom? I'm sure you do.
Mark Pollard 44:26
Well, I mean, one of the things that's been on my mind a lot as I've been talking and teaching in various countries is, don't forget that these tools are great to use on yourself. And we are our main clients. And sometimes we forget that for a couple of decades or until big crises push us to reflect about life. So it's great doing this work and getting paid to do this work. But these tools can be very powerful when you use them on yourself. Absolutely.
Mia Fileman 44:53
That is so true. Thank you so much. Thank you for creating the four points. It's fabulous. I definitely have the full way accelerator on my radar, especially next year on this sabbatical, so you may see my enrollment come in there.
Mark Pollard 45:07
Yay!
Mia Fileman 45:08
I will put in all the links in the show notes, Mark's book, the four week accelerator and his socials. But thank you once again for being so generous with your time and your ideas.
Mark Pollard 45:20
Thanks for having me. And I hope you enjoy that sabbatical.
Mia Fileman 45:24
Thank you, you listened right up until the end. So why not hit that subscribe button and keep the good marketing rolling. Podcast reviews are like warm hugs. And they're also the best way to support a small business. You can connect with me, Mia Fileman on Instagram or LinkedIn and feel free to send me a message. I'm super friendly.
