Parts is Parts

Simple isn’t easy

In one of the greatest scenes in last years blockbuster movie, The Big Short, Anthony Bourdain (one of my absolute favorites) explains the difference between your mortgage and a CDO, by describing fresh Halibut, excitedly offered as Fish Stew 3 days later as the closest thing we could understand to the mortgage market meltdown.  The labyrinth of companies in the “ad/mar tech” marketplace offer parts, a la carte’, when a stew is much more easily understood and digestible to the marketplace at large. The best data, separated by the ability to act upon it, is like seeing the halibut and not knowing how to prepare it. Packaged solutions, offered more broadly, with simple explanations as to how it benefits your company’s or clients marketing/sales efforts will offer the solutions that take the technology of advertising to the next level of adoption and profitability.

Note to reader, I was afraid of shop class

In 7th grade, when I was forced to build a model car in shop class and finished with parts leftover  earning my only “D”, I have forever feared parts that didn’t seem to go together. The thought of putting together a large, complex piece of furniture from IKEA (which I believe stands as a reminder that I Kan’t Ever Assemble) is not dissimilar to the glazed look of fear and anxiety on clients faces, as I tried to sell parts not connected to other parts, to both traditional and digital marketing executives.   How many of us see some cool new way of capturing data and can’t find the right use for it? Or a wonderful new way of reaching customers, without the underlying data to make sure to get the ROI required? How does your data get to my trade desk? And, what if I don’t have a trade desk or know what you are even talking about?   What if I leave out a part?

Digital is not a tactic, its an integral part of the overall plan

With the tech world talking about IoT, aka, the Internet of things, while simultaneously explaining what comes next, is more than just a bit confusing to our audiences. Most of us have started down the road of digital utilizing the tools offered by GOOGLE (always be afraid of all things too good to be true o the first free anything) that have been available for a long before we start to contemplate the new stuff. It’s ok to start “last in first out” and take advantage of the fact that innovation is moving so quickly, leveling the playing field for smart marketers ready to take advantage of a strategy that embraces and integrates digital vs treating it as a separate silo. Sequential implementation of leapfrogged techniques and data reminds me of a story about my mother. She used to read newspaper in order, even if it was Friday, she would read Monday thru Thursday first. When I asked her why, she replied without hesitation, “what if there was a food recall? In the fast moving ad/mar tech marketplace, things “recalled” have been shut down.

Parts, products, solutions, eco-systems, networks

There are many forms of strategic alliance. Partnering with companies with logically connected and complementary parts is often the first point in taking a part and becoming a product or solution.   Pre-packaging of these parts immediately ups the chance of a great audience understanding the benefit of these new ideas. Integrating these new products into client systems, processes and mindsets creates the scale required to turn parts into products and subsequent broad based market adoption that creates a usable ad/mar tech ecosystem. Networks of companies, creating new products, built of disparate parts all aimed at the same goal, figuring out how we market in this new world, today and for the years to come.