You're in marketing, right? You understand branding, positioning, awareness and affinity right? Well, physician, it's time to heal thyself.
I had the distinct privilege of seeing Dave Rhee, Global Marketing Analytics at adidas Group deliver a keynote presentation at the eMetrics Summit twice in two weeks. Last year, the Berlin eMetrics Summit followed immediately after the London version and I had asked Wandering Dave to take the stage at both of them.
I met Dave ten years ago at the eMetrics Summit in Santa Barbara. He was doing business and web analytics for Gateway, the computer company, and came up to me in the Lobby Bar and asked what I knew about social graphs. As this was ten years ago, I admitted that I had no idea what he was talking about.
Dave outlined the potential to analyze relationships between people based on their interactions on email discussion lists, threaded discussion lists and on a new breed of 'social' websites like Facebook and LinkedIn. The conversation was wildly intriguing and ran the gamut from privacy to relationship selling to creepiness. Little did we know that as social sentiment analysis industry was about to be born. We were just schmoozing.
I kept in touch with Dave and he came to more eMetrics Summits over the years, eventually presenting in Europe where he had taken up residence, "wandering" aside.
But when he joined adidas, I was all over him to come back and do it again. He demurred as he had only just started and wanted to wait until he had a story to tell. A year later, he has a heck of a story about growing the reputation of digital analytics within the company, achieving brand recognition within the company, and playing the long game better than anybody I've yet encountered.
The Invisible Clan
When Dave was hired, he found himself in charge of a group of highly intelligent but somewhat reticent analysts. They are passionate, they are enthusiastic, they are engaged, but they were not outgoing.
Step one in Dave's visibility program was a combination of improving the team's self-image and planting a flag that clearly communicated that these people really were passionate, enthusiastic, and engaged.
He directed them to dress up / dress out / dress for fun and meet at a specific table in the company cafeteria for a fun lunch. He wanted to make sure everybody knew that this table was full of Cool Kids. They liked each other. They loved their jobs. They had fun together. How would Dave know if he was successful? When he overheard somebody walk by and say to their colleague, "I wonder who these people are. They're sure having fun."
That worked. Their table became known for its levity and Gemütlichkeit. But there was a piece missing: people still weren't sure who they were. Dave had a solution: branding.
Making a Mark
Dave commissioned a logo for the team. The time and effort of creating a brief and sourcing an artist was rewarded with a clearly unique logo that is different enough that it sparks conversations. The logo represents the team well and gives team members the opportunity to deliver their pre-crafted elevator pitch whenever anybody asks.
Now, people in the lunchroom know who they are and are drawn to the fact that this group of digital analysts were not actuaries or statisticians, but deeply engrossed business types who understand the bottom line - and how to have a good time.
Better yet, whenever Dave's team members are working in partnership in business units doing hands-on analytics, they sport laptops adorned with the team logo and gear in their sun-corporate color. The rest of the company now sees that this fun loving group is not simply fun at lunch and then spends the rest of their lives in some data dungeon, but can be found embedded all over the firm. They are recognizable wherever they go.
Taking the Long View
Dave's view goes beyond marketing and branding and into growth hacking. What, he pondered, would be the best way to grow his team and grow its knowledge of the business, the better to help the business?
The answer is working with an open hand.
When an embedded analyst is really good at their job, the business unit they work with occasionally appropriates that person for themselves.
"They are so valuable to our efforts that we cannot allow them to be reassigned to some other unit and, so, we need to have them working directly for us."
Dave does not bark, bite or connive. He opens his hand and lets them go. Why? Because he counts on that analyst coming back to the core team after some period of time (months or even years). When they do, they are that much more informed about how the business works and that much more valuable on the next project.
When faced with an employee who is forced to move out of the teaming metropolis of Herzogenaurach, Germany for personal reasons, Dave again takes the long view. Eventually (years or even decades) he counts on that person coming back, far more educated about how the rest of the world works. He considers it his employee lending library program. They all work for Dave, just not directly.
Dave has always been a man of vision.
And finally, an important message from Dave that he delivered at the end his keynote presentation at eMetrics: he’s hiring.
Be sure to tune in to Dave Rhee's
Thought Leader Conversation with Jim Sterne
Conversation Tuesday February 23 from 1pm – 2pm ET.
Go here to register.