The words you need to least to hear as a marketing responsible are \u201cI like that\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Be that from someone responding to an idea for a promotion, a new packaging design, a new product concept or a creative communication design! Or an advertising agency, a supply or service vendor, or your boss!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At its heart, marketing is a fine blend of creativity, innovation and imagination which must always be combined with a rigorous discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the accolades you should be looking for should say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat is exactly what the brief calls for\u201d or \u201cThat is exactly what is required to exploit that opportunity we were talking about!\u201d or \u201cThat exactly meets the brief and what else can we do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your job is to initiate strategic discussion and get total involvement by all relevant parties, to get formal agreement for the discussion by writing it into a detailed brief and finally to coordinate the execution of the project to the standards agreed in the brief.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That discussion includes, the target market, the project style, type and levels of activity, collateral elements and timing detail of project and the cost and financial reward<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coordinating that is the real job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So when your boss says \u201cI like that\u201d ignore it. It adds nothing to the success of the initiative?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A better reply would be \u201cThat meets the brief and what else can we do to ensure success or what help do you need to ensure success?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That a much more profitable answer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garth Sutherland has an extensive multicultural understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He has worked with local brands (creating independent strategic positions) and international brands (integrating the international brand vision with the local demand to optimize the \u201con the ground\u201d brand presence). His strengths include bringing a strong strategic focus into all aspects of marketing delivery, working with multi-agency perspectives, independent thinking & implementing with a consistent and practical interdependent teamwork focused delivery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He is currently heading up www.smallbusinessmarketing.co.za<\/a>, a fractional marketing consultancy that specialises in the SME sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And writing on modern marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are looking to maximize the strategic value of your brand opportunity, Garth is the ideal resource to task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contact him at garth@smallbusinessmarketing.co.za<\/a> or +27 (0) 81 265 5803<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other posts in this series can be read at https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/garthrsutherland\/<\/a> or on http:\/\/www.smallbusinessmarketing.co.za<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Is it not fantastic when someone says I like the work you did? No. The work you deliver must reflect against the thinking and stagey completed prior to briefing. Anyone who looks at a piece of work should approve against the strategy, not against personal opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traditional-marketing"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/I-like-that-the-words-you-least-need-to-hear.jpg",1099,571,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/I-like-that-the-words-you-least-need-to-hear-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/I-like-that-the-words-you-least-need-to-hear-300x156.jpg",300,156,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/I-like-that-the-words-you-least-need-to-hear-768x399.jpg",768,399,true],"large":["https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/I-like-that-the-words-you-least-need-to-hear-1024x532.jpg",1024,532,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/I-like-that-the-words-you-least-need-to-hear.jpg",1099,571,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/I-like-that-the-words-you-least-need-to-hear.jpg",1099,571,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Garth","author_link":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Is it not fantastic when someone says I like the work you did? No. The work you deliver must reflect against the thinking and stagey completed prior to briefing. Anyone who looks at a piece of work should approve against the strategy, not against personal opinion.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1450,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions\/1450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}About Garth Sutherland<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n