money

When Money Isn’t Enough…

We’re going to talk about money today…But don’t let it scare you! And to do so, we’re going to have to go back in time a few years ago!

Microsoft had just spent about $400 million dollars to become the official tablet of the NFL! What a great strategy right? If you turned on any NFL game then (and now) you’ll see Surface Pro logos plastered everywhere. On the side lines, on the field, in the coaches hands…The Surface Pro was and still is every where a camera turned…

$400 million dollars is a nice chunk of change to spend on an advertising and branding campaign. So naturally, when people think of what tablet is sponsoring the NFL, you’ll think…Surface Pro!

Opening night of the new season and the live to air broadcast had the play by play guys say how awesome it was that all the coaches were using ‘iPads‘ on the side lines…

Wait a minute?

iPads? Isn’t that the number one competition for Microsoft’s Surface Pro and arguably THE brand most thought of when it comes to tablet computing.

Are you starting to see the trouble with…Throwing money at a problem?

You see, far too often we think if we ‘spend’ more money we’ll solve all our marketing and branding problems. If we drop thousands on a cool ad, we’ll be the talk of the town.

The issue is, we are asking the wrong question…Instead of asking ‘How do I spend more money to become top of mind’, the right question should be..

“How Do I Become Remarkable?”

What kind of value can I deliver to my customer that makes me stick out from the noise? How can I become a better choice for my customers than any of my competition?

So that it doesn’t matter if they spend 400 million bucks or 40 dollars extra on their advertising, MY brand and my services are what people choose!

We don’t need to be the next Apple and create a better iPad, we just need to do things differently than our competition and offer more value by being remarkable, each and every day!



13 thoughts to “When Money Isn’t Enough…”

  1. I am glad you finally got this off your chest….now
    you have put it on my chest!

    Good stuff , Jon

    Thanks my friend,
    john worsham

  2. You can`t reinvent the wheel, as they say. What Microsoft did is akin to opening a new search engine to outdo Google…..good luck with that! What they should do is outdo their own operating systems as they are already top of the field in that department. Finding what it is we excell at and putting everything into that is the best way to corner our part of the market. This is what I came away with when reading your post. Good one Jon.

    1. Thanks Caroline and that’s a really good point…When someone tells me ‘this is the next Facebook’ ‘Or this is the next Twitter’ I laugh….Stop trying to be a better version of something that’s already out there….Be remarkable and carve your own path!

    2. @ Caroline, not that Microsoft did their own search engine to out do Google,

      Microsoft launched their own search engine to get a piece of the pie, Google
      profits $60,000 Billion on adwords, where business owners buys ads to run
      on Adsense that are displayed on Publishers, publishers are website owners
      that has a top level domain with a quality niche website that gets lots of
      organic traffic from consumers searches of what they seek.

  3. Very good points, Jon… another example would be facial tissue… Kleenex is a brand but there are literally dozens of other brands out there… when your nose is running, you invariably ask some one to “get me a Kleenex”.. We all have to learn to stand out like that!!!

  4. I believe that this example is relative to corporations that actually see millions (quarterly) in revenue. The principal here is that they generate so much that they can afford an advertising flop…if we can really consider it one.

    Note: Prior to the 2017 NFL season the Surface Pro had never crossed my mind; but perhaps it’s working.

    Many other corporations are guilty of this also. They seem to throw dollars at a campaign simply for the purposes of branding themselves; not necessarily launching a sensible ad campaign. It’s like they figure their market saturation is so intense that an ad “that makes sense” isn’t needed.

    Of course, us smaller guys have to be far more particular with the amount of funds we put into a campaign as many of us lack that flexibility.

    Who knows…this may work out. Just give it time. After all, I’m sure that Microsoft compensates research departments handsomely to gauge trends among competitors.

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