In this issue:
- In Our Opinion: New Year’s Resolution – ‘Aspire’
- Spotlight On Sean Rach:
- Sean Rach Promoted to Chief Marketing Officer at PCA
- Career Opportunities:
- VP, Individual Digital Experience – Global Financial Services
- Your Comments:
- Susan Cotton, Executive Chairman of The Lily Project – “2014-The Year of Social Enterprise“
- Articles:
- “The Tyranny of ‘Scale’ ” by Michael Baer
In Our Opinion by Jeff Gundersen & Lola White
New Year’s Resolution – ‘Aspire’
Happy New Year!
One thing we love about January is all businesses start again at zero, create new surges of momentum, and begin implementing action plans to achieve the strategic, marketing, operational, and financial plans created in the prior fiscal year.
However, frequently there is an overlay to the global business environment, a general mood, influenced by CEO and consumer confidence, and economic forecasts/trends, which enhances or dampens the enthusiasm of individuals and organizations to assertively drive to achieve their best potential performance.
In our view, the 2014 economy (especially the US) outperformed forecasted growth rates, led by sectors including healthcare, mobile advertising and online shopping which grew in double digits. While there are several areas of global concern including rising terrorism, political instability in the Middle East, and government dysfunction, the overall sentiment heading into 2015 feels strongly positive on balance, and we see many early signs of companies investing more heavily in marketing, technology, and mobile commerce to achieve significant global growth objectives.
We recently read an editorial column by Matt Walsh, Editor & Publisher in the January 2-8, 2015 edition of Business Observer – Florida’s Newspaper for the C-Suite (www.BusinessObserverFL.com) where Walsh said…“The Word for 2015 is ‘Aspire’ “…and we could not agree more heartily. Walsh’s column included the following:
“We used to aspire. We aspired to be great, to be the best, to win. And we went for it. We worked for it. We did whatever it took to be great. We need to bring this back. We need to teach everyone – especially America’s children – to aspire to be great. Bring back Vince Lombardi. During Lombardi’s era in the 1960s as head coach of the Green Bay Packers, he epitomized America’s desire to win. He is most frequently associated with the quote, ‘Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.’ He expressed the opinion, forcefully and unapologetically, that the pursuit of victory, fairly and squarely, and within the rules, is life’s great challenge. Not victory for its own sake, but victory as a test of how far you could push yourself to your limits and beyond, a test of your ability to overcome your doubts and weaknesses, and a test of how much of your God-given talent and ability you were willing to expend in the pursuit of success and victory.”
Aspirational leadership starts at the top. We have written consistently about CEOs from companies including Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Starbucks, and Uber, among others, who have pursued aspirational category-changing strategies that resulted in hyper market capitalization growth in short time frames. These CEOS and category-leading companies demonstrate what’s possible with aspirational leadership which pushes for the extraordinary instead of modest growth objectives.
On a personal basis, this is a great time of year to take stock of your business and personal career/brand, and ask yourself the hard questions regarding whether you are playing full-out and pushing yourself and your team/organization/company to your limits and beyond in order to achieve the stretch goals you aspire to produce.
What we know, and what we feel, is we agree with Matt Walsh, if there was ever a year which was right for a mantra of ‘Aspire’…it’s 2015!
Best wishes for continued personal and business success, health and prosperity!
As always, we welcome your comments and input.
Lola and Jeff
Spotlight On Sean Rach
Sean Rach Promoted to Chief Marketing Officer at PCA
We are pleased to share an announcement from Barry Stowe, CEO of Prudential Corporation Asia, that Sean Rach has been named Chief Marketing Officer for PCA effective January 1, 2015.
Executive Connections LLC placed Sean at PCA in 2009, where he has championed the development of integrated marketing solutions for all business lines and has developed innovative digital and branding programs including Cha-Ching, Safe Steps, Prudential Eye, and the Regional Brand Platform – “I am Prudential.”
Sean brought a strong digital marketing foundation to PCA and his promotion to CMO fulfills an EC prophecy that the “CMO of the future” must be digital-first marketers.
Sean is also an “aspirational” CMO who stretches himself and his team to consistently produce the extraordinary instead of the ordinary results.
We wish Sean continued success in his career!
Career Opportunities
VP, Individual Digital Experience – Global Financial Services
The VP, Individual Digital Experience is a senior level, cross-business leader accountable for collaboratively defining and designing digital experience for Individual constituent types. Constituent types include investors, participants, policyholders, beneficiaries and other individual consumers. The successful candidate will lead diverse, internal, matrix teams, including third-party consultants, to develop competitive web, social and mobile engagement channels across our Client’s portfolio of businesses and corporate functions, including brand, advertising, thought leadership, market research, communications, information technology and digital solutions, ensuring that the Individual’s critical cross channel needs are addressed throughout their customer life cycle.
Your Comments
Hi Jeff – I was intrigued by your title 2014 – The Year of Social Enterprise, because I am studying at Pepperdine for a MA in Social Entrepreneurship and Change…and I see the impact of social enterprises increasing, but we still have a long way to go. And while I find both of these companies really great examples of the collaborative consuming/sharing economy, I don’t believe they are great examples of social enterprises. Social enterprises are built first and foremost to create positive social value – with measurements that go well beyond shareholder value to stakeholder value. You can generally see it first in their vision, mission, values and financial reporting (does it go beyond shareholders?). Here are a couple of articles that talk about the distinction between social businesses that are part of the sharing economic and social enterprises.
- What is Sharing the Economy? Are Companies in the Sharing Economy Social Enterprises?
- Want to Make Money & Change the World? An Idiots Guide to ‘Social Entrepreneurship” (This article says one of the founders of airbnb considers it a social enterprise…but it doesn’t seem to be part of their dna).
I think the easiest way to think about it is…Does the company view its mission to deliver social good first or is social good a side benefit?
There are really great examples of both for-profit/non-profit social enterprises – and many are hybrid organizations. Take a look at Dlight, Divine Chocolates, Homeboy Industries, D-Rev, Enterprise Community Partners…even Warby Parker. All doing awesome things!
I can see a lot of potential for your business to get to know this sector well – it is growing and there are some amazing people involved…I’m having a blast 🙂
Susan Cotton is Executive Chairman of The Lily Project, a community-based women’s health program based in Leon, Nicaragua. Unlike the US, where widespread adoption of Pap testing has made cervical cancer one of our most treatable and least deadly cancers, in Nicaragua, regular screening is available to only about 10% of the population, and cervical cancer is the #1 cancer killer of women – responsible, on average, for the death of one woman every day. The Lily Project’s mission is to deliver preventive health care to women in rural Nicaragua reducing the number of women newly diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer 30% by 2020 through implementation of an innovative screen and treat approach proven effective in other low-resource communities. The Lily Project is launching in Miramar – a small coastal village where the closest medical clinic is more than two hours away – on January 28th, 2015.
Articles
“The Tyranny of ‘Scale’ ” – by Michael Baer
Commentary from MarketingDaily – December 9, 2014
There it was, in HuffPo, in a listicle called “10 Tricks to appear smart during meetings.” Along with a recommendation to “Pace around the room” and to “Nod continuously while pretending to take notes” was number 6 on the list: “Ask ‘Will this scale?’ no matter what it is.” And, it’s true – say this and people will think you are smart. But, unfortunately, it only perpetuates a fallacy.
You see, there’s an on-going illusion about scale. In digital and mobile advertising, marketers, sellers and buyers are all participating in this illusion day in and day out. That is, there’s a desire and demand for more and more impressions, more eyeballs and views, more tonnage reaching your target. But does this tonnage really reach the target? Is this scale actually useful, valuable or even real?
We are pleased to announce Julie Winskie has joined Mercer as Global Head of Branding & Communications reporting to Michelle Bottomley, Global Chief Marketing & Sales Officer. In this newly created role, Julie will provide strategic direction and management to a talented team of professionals around the world, raising and enhancing Mercer’s profile and impact. This includes developing integrated marketing communications aligned to maximize impact (e.g. PR, events, design), leading B2B and B2B2C branding efforts, and creating a platform that all global marketing teams can access to ensure a more consistent and compelling global brand presence. She’ll also work with the team to initiate global brand tracking and other relevant key performance indicators so Mercer can better monitor return on marketing communications investments globally.