🟢 The fundamentals of opposable marketing

Since 2009, I've delivered quite a few Executive MBA classes, from Paris to Shanghai. It's an activity that I really enjoy — and, if I may say so myself, my students too. The thing is, such three-day courses are usually very educational for me. Having three days together is a real luxury, even by the current standards of executive seminars that we run directly in the industry. During this time, we have many opportunities to dissect the standard business logic and try to rewrite it very extensively in some cases. Among other things, this allows me to reassess what managers keep on finding difficult to grasp when launching innovative businesses and sustaining them later on.

Weirdly enough, one of the top issues that I encounter on how executives think about innovation and business, in general, has always been about marketing. There are many reasons why. Starting with the cold and harsh reality, most marketing strategies are abysmally bad. I’m not even saying they could be improved. They are not worth anyone's attention, which potential customers soon realize.