The forgotten marketing metric:
RESULTS
It was one of the few warm, early spring days in April. I was coasting back into the neighbourhood after a ride on the local bike trail, while such things were still open during the pandemic. Three of the little, neighbourhood girls were playing outside in the sun. The oldest saw me, stood up and yelled, “Hi, Kerry.” I was going too fast to address each by name, so I called back, “Good morning, ladies.” The middle one stood up, put her little fists on her hips and said, “We’re NOT LADIES!! Not YET!!” What a kick! I had my kids, and my grandchildren are cute, but not five-year-old-cute. I love kids. I was particularly amused that she, totally oblivious to my age, education, experience and profession, would announce my failings as a speaker of English. Ah. The innocence of youth. Then my mind flipped, as it often does, to the business at hand, including a marketing article for Coverings and the crisis of the Covid-19 virus. What does one do about that?
6
May/June 2020
We at Coverings have access to a huge array of resources, both current, periodical and historical. In the periodical area, we are seeing self-acclaimed marketing experts confidently advising all and sundry to do what amounts to nothing new, but more of the same: blog, post, blast, cast, vid, snap, insta, face and twit. Some more. Going back to origins, marketing used to mean more. If I recall correctly, a seminal precept of professional marketing was to identify a market, study and understand the market and figure out how to attract, hold and get a response from the market, come up with original ideas and address the market. See how it works. Go back, make adjustments again and repeat. It would have been anathema to throw a lexicon of digital buzzwords at a stump and see if any would stick, let alone charge somebody for the experiment. Half of my master’s degree is in PR. I interviewed back in the day with FleishmanHillard. Many of my friends in school went the PR route, following the siren’s call of big money. However, I had been watching, and it appeared to me that the big PR companies hired the best talent for the best starting wage, milked them of all their best ideas for three years and threw them to the wayside. I decided not to play. So, on the side of the big PR agencies, their staff is always
