Great, great post in Gamasutra entitled “No one cares about your cool game idea.” I'd like to expand the thesis from just game design ideas to marketing ideas (if not all ideas).

If there is anything I wish had been pounded into my head while I was young, it is that "your idea is worthless."  For whatever reason, so many of us grow up with the concept of success as a ‘killer idea’ that is so powerful and awesome it destroys all the lessor notions in its path.  Then reality smacks you in the face. 

So even though I'm not a designer, I loved the post because after ~8 years of working in sales and marketing it summed up everything I've ever wanted to scream from the rooftops. Indeed I've come to believe that individuals who don't 'get this' can be the most destructive force on your marketing team.*  

In the marketing world, they tend to come in these two forms: 

Engineering Success
I use the term ‘engineering’ metaphorically here to describe a situation when someone fiddles with the details (typically incentives) of a program, usually before the program actually launches. In my experience this manifests in the conception or development phase, when a marketer thinks if they can just hit the right econ harmonics the program will be a rousing success.  A key indicator of someone trying to engineer success is how hard they fight and argue for the specific scheme they have dreamed up long before there is any actual data on how the users are interacting with it.

The problem with engineering successes is anyone who has actually conceived, developed and released a product knows (or should know) that your initial scheme is really just a ‘best guess’ or more kindly a starting point. It’s all going to (and damn well better) change later when you know more. 


The pros know this.  They do their best before release and quickly move on to more important stuff. You know, like, actually attracting customers.  Once you have a stream of people giving your a look you can rather easily and methodically test your incentives, call to action text, pitch or homepage design to capture ever higher levels of revenue from those eyeballs. 

In some ways a classic ‘cart before the horse’ problem, but I think it warrants deeper mention because of the conviction and veracity of the ‘success engineer’s arguments.  To them, success is something that can be engineered with some create idea.  

These people are a drag on a marketing team. You end up endless debating the best way to present a portion of it to them without much regard for how you're going to get them to give you a chance int he first place. 

Sustainability is for Sissies
Recently one of my favorite blogs, Copyranter- authored by a advertising copywriter ranting about horrible (and sometimes, great) advertising, actually posted something I don’t agree with for a change by saying this ad for an awards show was one of the worth he had ever seen.  

If you didn’t watch it, the spot is for an advertising awards show and features an advertising pitch man droning on about buzzwords and typical marketing bullshit in a pitch to a potential client. The potential client’s team quickly gets tired of it though. So with a nod from the boss, they first shoot him with a handgun, then a shotgun and finally beat him far beyond death with a golf club.

Copyranter hated it, but god I loved it and smiled with glee when I saw the spot.  I think anyone who has sat through more than a couple pitches from advertising agencies probably loved it as well.  For all the true talent out there, it's sometimes shocking how ad agencies are able to collect and collate complete hacks. 

The problem with 'idea's people' is even if their super creative idea is really something that can generate results in terms of pure profit/loss, the results are rarely sustainable.  You can research success stories for nearly every pithy line the ad man throws out in the spot (think ‘viral’), but regardless of the individual success of the campaigns the direct result was never a sustainable business.  At most all you can hope for is a nice bump, Colbert style. 

Sustainable ideas are inherently not very sexy, because something  sexy has an inherent half-life.  The thrill 'goes,' so to speak. 

So while it’s a lot more fun to conceive, develop and green light those exciting creative ideas, few (if any) will be helping you build a sustainable business.  This isn’t to say there isn’t room for fun and exciting campaigns, by all means you have to mix it up sometimes. If someone on your team is only working on those parts of marketing though, perhaps they are better suited  at a [crappy] ad agency. 

  *Please note that while it’s certainly the job of marketing to get this and if you are a marketer who does not get it, I will never hire you, we can’t hold non-markers to the same standard.  If only because we hope they don’t think less of us whenever we say/offer some truly stupid technical or design thoughts.