I know this commercial came out a year ago, but yesterday was my first day seeing it.
It’s a quick 30 second commercial, but I’ll sum it up for you: a couple is sitting having breakfast. The woman gives the man a gift…the man, returns the favor. But, he gets her a new car. And while he’s at it…gets himself one too.
I don’t know about you, but I have to ask my wife’s permission to buy a new bundle of socks.I can’t imagine her reaction if I were to randomly “surprise” her with a new car; let alone two!
It’s such a tone-deaf message, especially in today’s environment. Now, I realize the commercial is a year old…but buying this commercial time still required someone to make a decision and run this commercial yesterday.
Marketing 101
Let’s do a quick Marketing 101 recap. The first rule of marketing:
Know thy audience.
It’s a simple but incredibly effective rule. GMC isn’t a super-premium brand line. It's not targeting the top 1%. In fact, the buyer profile is solidly middle class and last time I looked…the average middle-class couple can’t drop $70-80K on a whim. Or even take on the extra grand a month or so to lease two, new cars.
Let me ask you: Does this ad resonate with you? Come Christmas morning, are you going to hand your spouse the keys to a new car without consulting him or her on the purchase? Doubtful!
It’s tone-deaf and out of touch with the average GMC buyer. So, how does an ad like this get created let alone make it to the airwaves?
The Echo Chamber
An echo-chamber is defined as: an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced, and alternative ideas are not considered.
GMC and others like them have created their own, internal marketing-echo-chambers. It’s how commercials like this get made; no one is pushing back because they all have the same backgrounds and therefore the same philosophies.
In looking at several marketing leaders at GMC, I noted that most of them referred to their “experience” and “expertise” they had in the auto-business. In fact, GM named a new CMO who has spent time at McDonald’s, Groupon and even PulteGroup…but the press release down-played those roles in order to pump-up how much experience she had in the auto-industry.
I’m going to suggest something radical: Having all that expertise in one, singular vertical isn’t a strength, it’s a liability. When you have one tool…say a hammer…everything looks like a nail.
When you spend too much time in a singular vertical or industry, you become more concerned with the minutiae or the finite details. You can’t see the forest from the trees because you have too much expertise. You begin to say things like “this is how we’ve always done it.” Your opinion trumps data (that’s a whole different blog post) and people are afraid to challenge you because of all of your experience.
Looking for proof that the auto industry has created these echo chambers? How many commercials like GMC’s do you see during the holidays? Several. Because they don’t know better. Brands aren’t hiring marketing leaders from outside of the industry, because they see that lack of experience as a weakness.
And so, we’ll continue to get tone-deaf ads that don’t resonate with the very people they are trying to sell to.
Impact Of Hiring
Ads like this are created based on bad hiring practices. Truly. I know I’m picking on the auto-industry, but this philosophy applies to all industries. You cannot hire people that look like you, think like you and have the same background as you…and expect them to create “outside-the-box” strategies.
An obnoxious percentage of job postings in the marketing field typically have some stated requirement of “must have X years experience within this industry/vertical/B2B/B2C…etc.” And then another of “must provide creative and innovative ideas.”
Every person I’ve floated my counter-argument to this philosophy has said something along the lines of: “well, that’s true for most industries, but mine’s different.”
No. It’s not. In fact, the reason why we want to believe our industry is “different” is because of ego. We want to believe that our X years of industry experience has meant something. That all of these years in B2C, or whatever industry, has given us some game-changing advantage.
It has not (caveat to come).
If anything, you’ve gotten too comfortable. You’re seeing trees and not the forest. You're ignoring new data and relying instead on old mental models you built years ago.
Are your years wasted? Depends. If you believe that the experience you’ve gained can only be applied within the vertical or space that you’ve existed in for all of that time? Then yes, perhaps your time has been wasted.
Here's the caveat I mentioned above: If you can see how to connect the dots in new and different industries? If you can apply your experiences to different verticals and create new ways of thinking and seeing, then you truly have created game-changing advantages.
I’ll end with this story: During Henry Ford’s time, a car was built one car at a time. There was a team assigned to each car and that team worked on the entire car until it was finished. One day, Mr. Ford was at a butcher shop. He watched as pieces of meat were worked at each station. One person cut the fat, another separated bones and so on until the meat was fully taken apart.
Mr. Ford took that moment and said “can we do that to cars?” And the Assembly Line was created. Mr. Ford connected the dots from outside of his vertical to create a game-changing advantage. He saw forests…not trees.
Outside perspectives are often needed in order to create new and innovative outcomes. When hiring, if a person doesn’t have industry experience or B2B experience, but they’ve been an All-Star in their previous roles? Chances are they can be an All-Star for you. Chances are they will bring new and innovative ideas to the table, especially if they are able to talk about how to apply what they’ve learned in other industries to yours.
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