When teaching marketing, there’s a story I tell about Kobe Bryant, the American professional National Basketball Association player who played for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Apparently, a journalist, who wanted to do a story on Kobe as America’s greatest basketballer, went and observed Kobe in his routine basketball practice session.
The journalist was perplexed, and queried Kobe at the end of the session, “Kobe, you are America’s greatest basketballer, but all I watched you do your whole training session was basic drills… How come?”
The response from Kobe was, “the reason I’m a better basketballer is because I always practise the basics!”
So too it is with marketing; and the reason that organisations suffer commercial failure, disruption, frustration, misallocation of funds, poor return on marketing investment, failed product launches, an unsatisfactory return on shareholders’ funds, all comes down to when the marketing governance loses focus on marketing basics: The marketing concept, STP (segmentation targeting and positioning), and universal obsession with the customer.
When leaders practice and respect and apply the basics, that is when genuine long-term success is achieved!
