"It might be just what this Tribe needs, a change in leadership style. Because the thing is, times are changing. We can't get away with being bigger and more violent than everybody else anymore. IMAGINATION. That's what they need and you've got. A Hero of the Future is going to have to be clever and cunning, not just a big lump with overdeveloped muscles."
From "How To Train Your Dragon" by Cressida Cowell
In How To Train Your Dragon, the traditional method of dragon-training is basically to bully the dragons into submission. The loudest and fiercest shouters are the best trainers. Until Hiccup comes along and learns to speak their language. Literally. He speaks Dragonese.
The passage is really about "leadership style", and could apply to leaders of countries, businesses or even families. But it can also be applied - more interestingly, I think - to marketing leaders.
If you think about old-school marketing, it was really about shouting loudest. And by shouting I mean outspending. As a kid, the brands I knew weren't the smartest ones. The "leaders" were the ones whose names I saw most often - on TV, in magazines and newspapers, on the radio. Think about the big insurance companies, banks, tobacco and alcohol brands - they were everywhere you looked or listened. Of course, they were just big lumps with overdeveloped muscles. Their advertising was never great, it was just ubiquitous.
In the '80s, being "bigger than everybody else" was quite easy to do if you had the money. We only had three TV stations, not many more radio stations and two local daily newspapers. If you were big and had big bucks you could be everywhere. With a lot of money, you really didn't need a lot of imagination.
But then it got harder. First came one new TV channel, then another, then satellite television with hundreds of channels. Then came the internet, YouTube, Netflix. You just can't be everywhere anymore. Those old giants can't get away with just being bigger and more violent (read "throwing more money around") than everybody else anymore.
Of course ad agencies have been saying this for years, encouraging their clients to be more clever and cunning, and they were right, and still are. But now, that disruption and creativity isn't just about making a funnier ad. Often it's about not making an ad at all.
This new tribe represents a new landscape, and a new mindscape. Its members aren't just harder to reach because they're on so many different channels, platforms and media. They're also harder to reach intellectually because they really don't care for stories told the old-fashioned way: the chest-thumping, self-congratulatory, and general "look at us, we're so great and powerful and rich" vibe that used to evoke trust now just provokes cynicism. So hero marketers and storytellers of the future are, indeed, going to have to be clever and cunning.
Obviously I'm not the first person to say this. People have espoused the virtues and benefits of cunning and cleverness for centuries, and certainly for many decades when it comes to brand storytelling. But even in the recent past, many brands have got by on muscle alone, leaving creativity to the mavericks. Not too long from now, though, those dinosaurs won't get by so easily anymore. Not just because media is so fragmented, but because new tribes don't respond to brands that outspend; they respond to stories that outwit.
IMAGINATION. That's what they need.