Marketing Is a Lot Like Surfing

We recently had Jeremey Wright, experienced Wavetronix, Conagra, Nestle marketer come and speak to us. He explained an excellent analogy that we share here with his permission.

Marketing Is Like Surfing

We think a lot about marketing strategy, obviously. There are a lot of frameworks and theories about how to go about it. Here’s Jeremey’s approach to hitting a great wave and marketing for success:

1. Understand your environment.

2. Develop a strategy

3. Start surfing

4. Adjust course

5. Feel awesome

He tweaked the process for marketing and then applied the Harvard Business Framework:

Know Your Cs

Jeremy also gave some great examples of companies that really understood their Cs (customers, company, competitors, collaborators, context)

Customers: Hyundai, managing to grow their share in the middle of a recession with a clever approach to resolving worries about car debt. They knew that’s what consumers at the time were very worried about.

Competitors: Southwest realized they were competing against driving, not against other airlines, and with this perspective revolutionized air travel.

Context: Doordash has stepped up during the pandemic, providing amazing support to their dashers and local restaurants, and it has helped their business explode.

In the Marketing Lab, we want to become good surfers (marketers)! We think about each of these steps as we deliver marketing services to our clients.