Srivastava - Marketing Unplugged: Spotting the elephants in the room

The importance of spotting elephants

Here is a refreshing book that every marketer must read. It tells us how quickly the science of marketing has fallen behind the times, and what we have to do to prevent the marketing elephant from turning into a dinosaur. Suman Srivastava writes with conviction, and he tells his wonderful stories with great passion. The ten interesting elephants which are featured in this book are captivating, they provoke us, they reveal the traps we must avoid, and eventually they leave us with excellent insights into how we can become very effective marketers.

Harish Bhat
Author of Tata Log
Member, Group Executive Council, Tata Sons

Marketing Unplugged is a joy to read and is a wake up call! The book is a remarkable balance of observation, insight, relevance, and challenge. And it does that all (thanks to the Elephant in the room) with a real sense of wit and humour Suman makes a powerful argument that traditional marketing strategy is simply not equipped to deal with the reality of todays reality. It is convincing that new and fresh and innovative techniques are not only needed they are mandatory. And you will love getting to know the elephant!

Bob Schmetterer
Former Chairman and CEO, Euro RSCG Worldwide
Author of Leap! A Revolution in Creative Business Strategy

Marketing Unplugged is an interesting blend of wisdom, experience and insights, distilled by a master craftsman into an easy-to-use toolkit and garnished with real brand stories. Suman calls out the elephants in the room and shows you how the old rules of marketing have become irrelevant. A fun read. Totally unputdownable.

Prakash Iyer
Former Managing Director of Kimberly-Clark Lever,
Author of The habit of winning The secret of leadership

The world of marketing is changing fast. Keeping up with all the changes is hard. In this book, Suman has done an amazing job of distilling the lessons of the new world of marketing into a coherent narrative. He has done this in an entertaining and lucid manner with examples from India and abroad. His discourse isnt limited to marketing alone and he talks of history, politics, religion and sports along the way. A must read for all young marketing professionals.

Chander Sethi
Chairman Managing Director, South East Asia, Reckitt Benckiser

MARKETING
UNPLUGGED

Spotting the Elephants in the Room

Suman Srivastava

First eBook edition published in India in 2016 by CinnamonTeal Publishing

ISBN:9789385523519(EPUB)
ISBN:9789385523526(MOBI)
ISBN:9789385523533(PDF)

First published in India in 2016 by CinnamonTeal Publishing

Copyright 2016 Suman Srivastava

ISBN: 9789385523502

Suman Srivastava asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Ebook development: CinnamonTeal Publishing

Cover illustration and book illustrations: Gynelle Alves

Idea for illustrations: Rachna Dhall-Haasnoot.

CinnamonTeal Publishing
an imprint of Dogears Print Media Pvt. Ltd.
Plot No 16, Housing Board Colony
Gogol, Margao
Goa 403601 India
www.cinnamonteal.in

Table of Contents

From the Elephant in the Room

Hello.

I am the elephant in the room. You know that phrase, of course. It means an obvious truth that is ignored or not acknowledged.

I am used to being ignored. Lots of very smart people use very smart arguments to avoid having to deal with me. I find it very funny. Why are they so shy of me?

But let me explain what I am doing here. This guy, Suman, has written this book that you are about to read. He claims that his task is to spot the elephants in the room and help others spot them too. Basically, he is turning the spotlight on to me.

Suman is trying to say that marketers have these pet theories and they cling on to them even though they may be wrong. He has identified ten of these theories - ten elephants in the room as he calls them - which he tries to debunk.

Well, I dont like this spotlight on me. Here I have been sitting comfortably in the room, not being disturbed by anyone, watching with amusement as marketers try to step gingerly around me. And now, Suman is trying to get me out of here.

So, I have a plan. I am going to make fun of Suman. I am going to argue that he is wrong and there is nothing wrong with the elephants in the room. It will be fun to see who wins.

Enjoy the book. Suman has written all the boring, serious stuff with case studies and things. I appear only in the fun, cartoony stuff. We are on opposite sides of each issue. It is up to you to decide who is right.

Vote for me, though. OK?

THE REASON FOR THIS BOOK

The Technology of Marketing

My wife, Jasmeet, agreed to visit the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart, Germany, only because our son and I were so insistent. But by the time we ended the tour of the museum, Jasmeet was almost converted to the automobile religion. Indeed, it is hard to treat cars merely as a means of transport after you have heard of the exploits of the truly devout saints of the automobile faith.

As we walked across various levels of the museum, we were struck by the dramatic changes in car technology that have taken place in every decade since its evolution. Each decade not only had its own fashion in terms of looks, but also new advances in engineering and technology. New innovations get introduced in high-end cars, but within a decade or two, they become the norm for all cars.

I bought my first car twenty years ago. It was an almost new Premier Padmini that I loved with the passion reserved for a first anything. The Premier Padmini had a carburetor at the heart of the engine and car owners of that era needed to be auto-cardiologists to ensure this heart kept going perfectly.

Today, my car does not have a carburetor. Most modern cars come with an electronic fuel injection (EFI) system that is so different from the old system that my bag of tricks for managing a temperamental carburetor is now totally redundant. The new fuel injection system is more efficient, uses less fuel and throws far fewer tantrums. Ah, the wonders of technological progress.

Every industry has its own version of the carburetor EFI story, except marketing. Marketing tends to get stuck in the old way of doing things and hates change. It is as if an automobile saint has decreed that all cars will have a carburetor forever and ever. Amen.

Maybe this is because marketing doesnt use hard technology, but ideas and principles, which tend to be sticky. The great economic historian, Karl Marx, had noticed this stickiness and written about it at the end of the 19th century. He called hard technology the means of production. Around these means of production were a set of ideas and beliefs that he called the social superstructure. He found that when the means of production changed, the social superstructure needed to change too, but did so only with a lag. Often, such change required a violent revolution.

Maybe, that is the state that marketing is in currently. Marketing developed its core technologies in the sixties and has been using the same technology ever since. New ideas have been developed and written about, but not incorporated into mainstream marketing. It is as if the R&D division is coming up with innovations, but the factory managers are refusing to incorporate them into the cars they are building.