Deboras “Dev” Andrejevas ⏐ 10 Mar 2025 ⏐ 1-minute read.
Most marketing advice really, really sucks.
I studied marketing for 2 years in university. Then I started my own business and tried to implement what I learned in school. (That turned out to be an unmitigated disaster).
I remember having a professor who had a PhD in marketing. You’d expect her to know what she’s talking about, right?
Well, the problem is that she got her degree and went straight to teaching!
With no real-world experience, imagine!
She had a lot of knowledge, but she didn’t really know anything.
Anyway… took me a while to figure out that in university they taught me the strategy that companies like Coca Cola use right now.
Just blast your ad and hope for the best.
Only issue is that Coca Cola has a €600 million ad budget, and mine was like €600.
If you water a strategy down by a factor of one million it doesn’t tend to do as well.
Also, Coca Cola has 10,000 people in their marketing department. I had one. Which was me. And I also had to do everything else!
So I started to look into the question of: “how do big companies get so big?” You don’t go from zero to a €600 million budget without doing something right… right?
After a whoooole lot of research I figured out that they all roughly use the same formula.
They don’t start out running mass media “brand awareness” ads. They start out hammering home a USP and using mostly direct response ads.
Coca Cola started out using coupons, forcing distribution and selling a whole lot of sugar water as a result.
Turns out that big dumb companies start out as small smart companies. Then they hit critical mass, the board of directors takes over, HR comes on, middle management entrenches itself, there’s unlimited budget and the stupidness begins.
Now – if you’re reading this and you have a €600 million budget – that’s awesome. Congratulations, I salute you. Just run any ad, it’ll be fine. Wave to me when you fly over Dublin in your private jet.
If you’re not at that level yet, you probably want to make sure your ads have some ROI.
Talk soon,
Dev.
P.S. I’m currently working on a report on USPs. It will show you how small, smart companies grew at rapid rates using clever marketing. If you want it delivered straight to your inbox when it’s finished, join my free newsletter.
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