The Damned United, a film charting the tumultuous 44-day reign of Brian Clough at Leeds United FC, opened recently. UK Marketers under the age of 30 will probably remember him as a rather melancholy old man, but the young Clough was a wonder to behold.
Imagine a manager today leading a club toiling at the bottom of the Championship to win not only the Premier-ship but two back-to-back Champions League finals as well. That was, in essence, the equivalent of Clough’s astonishing achievement as manager of Nottingham Forest in 1979 and 1980.
He was a genius. But what can the Clough School of Management teach all marketers about marketing?
Keep It Simple
Clough had a simple philosophy. He believed that defenders should defend, midfielders create chances and strikers score goals. There was little else to his tactics. His simple approach carried over to his coaching ‘technique’ in which he would stand on the training ground holding a big stick shouting ‘hit the target’ repeatedly at his players.
The simplicity of his approach was its biggest strength. As John McGovern, one of his players, explained: ‘He made everything crystal clear to ordinary working men, which is what footballers are. If you make things clear to them and make them work hard, you will find you have an amazing product.’
One of the biggest weaknesses of some marketing strategies is their complexity. It’s easy to come up with a brand strategy that no one can understand, much harder to devise one straightforward enough for everyone to be able to execute.
Take Procter & Gamble’s chief executive, AG Lafley, who is widely regarded as a great leader. Under his ‘Sesame Street simple’ philosophy, brevity, repetition and simplicity have replaced complex corporate buzzwords. P&G’s entire corporate strategy fits onto one sheet of paper.
Pick An Enemy
Clough was a man who bore grudges. Throughout his career he picked fights with anyone he felt opposed his own viewpoint. His most famous feud centred on his hatred for the tactics of Leeds United and the club’s most successful manager, Don Revie.
He also had an antagonistic relationship with the Football Association, and bemoaned its decision to appoint Ron Greenwood, rather than himself, as England manager. Clough’s later comments on Greenwood revealed much about his attitude. ‘Ron was a charming man,’ he said. ‘He would not hurt a fly. He could not fall out with his wife to save his life.’
Ever the bombast, Clough realised something often lost on many marketers. It isn’t just about making the right people like you, it’s also about making the wrong people hate you. Brands can define themselves by stating what they stand for and defining themselves in contrast with their chosen foe. In the same way that Clough is remembered as much for his hatred of Leeds as his love for Forest, strong brands are comfortable nominating an enemy and attacking it accordingly.
Richard Branson understood this when he launched Virgin Atlantic in the 80s. The brand was built by contrasting its fresh competitive offering with a portrayal of British Airways as anti-competitive and stodgy.
Brand Equity: It’s What You’ve Got, Not What You Lack
Perhaps the most mesmerising thing about Clough’s success was the average quality of many of his players. In the case of Derby County, Clough took a side struggling to survive in the Second Division and trans-for-med its players into a team that beat Real Madrid 4-1 and went on to win the League title.
Clough did not worry about what was missing. Instead, he examined the existing strengths and weaknesses of the players he had at his disposal and worked from there. He explained: ‘I used to look at what a team had got.
I was a great believer in getting out of them what they had got. I never harped on about what they hadn’t got.’
It’s a fine principle, not only for football club management but also brand strategy. Too many brand managers walk into a role and try to alter it in line with their expectations, or to a formula that has worked for them with other brands. Such repositioning rarely works.
The key to great brand management is to review the existing equity of a brand through market research and then work with that to achieve your strategic goals. US retailer Wal-Mart provides an illustration of this. After several years of trying to reposition its brand to shoppers, the store finally decided to return to its traditional principles and simply refresh the offer with which it had always attracted consumers. The result has been a startling increase in sales and dramatic upturn in its share price.
Brand Engagement
Early in his management career, Clough was asked how he reacted when a player suggested he may be approaching something the wrong way. A mischievous look flickered across his face as he replied: ‘I ask him which way he thinks it should be done. We talk about it for 20 minutes, and then we decide that I was right.’
The illusion of inclusion is a vital skill for marketers to learn. The trick with any brand engagement is to allow employees to feel part of the branding process while simultaneously ensuring that the right strategic outcome still occurs. Too much empowerment in the branding project, and the monkeys are running the zoo. Too little and employees will resent the strategy and react accordingly.
The creation of Accenture shows how to get the balance right. When consultancy Landor was hired to create the rebrand for the former Andersen Consulting, it shortlisted a set of words it had come up with alongside several suggested by employees in an internal survey. Partners in the firm then voted for their favourite and opted for Accenture, a suggestion from a Danish employee. The name was good, but the method of getting organisational buy-in was even better.
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One comment
Randall Beard
May 28, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Interesting post. I was the first Marketing Director for P&G China, and AG Lafley would visit the market every other month. He had a great way of simplifying things: he always said there were two “moments of truth.” At the shelf, where consumers made their purchase decision, and at home, where they used and ultimately evaluated the product. This simple model really focused the organization on the most important requirements to “win” at those moments. I can tell you that all of the Marketing people knew the “moments of truth” speech, but more importantly, it drove their strategic choices and actions as well. A great example of the power of simplicity.
Randall Beard
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