From Best Practice to Next Practice: learn faster & learn better

Is it probably due to the somewhat flippantly formulated conference title that, in contrast to the last two years, the hall at the 28th Trend Conference of the Society for Marketing was not completely full? After a short introduction by the GfM president Dominique von Matt, Professor Marcus Schögel took over the scepter rhetorically convincingly and always with a wink. He knew how to give the somewhat cryptic conference title relevant content and shed some light on the background.

Best practice is good - but not sufficient

Schögel argued: "Best practice is too short-sighted and too strongly oriented towards the present" - it is therefore useless for companies to strive for differentiation by analyzing the best practices of other companies at the drop of a hat.Transferability from one industry to another is also only possible with a great deal of transformation and is often not achievable at all. Schögel rejects the well-known recipe-like marketing approaches - rather, experimentation is called for, which inevitably also entails risks. His statements can be summarized as follows:- Thinking in terms of eco-systems breaks down previous industry boundaries- Co-creation with close involvement of customers can be helpful- Investing in technologies and thus also learning- From error culture to opportunity culture - understanding errors as learning fieldsThe participants were encouraged not simply to copy from the best, but to rethink the future of their own company. Is that easy: No - but necessary for survival - according to the University of SG professor.

Shortened half-lives

The digital specialist from IBM began by pointing out that in 1984, business methods lasted 30 years - in 2015, that's just 5 years! The reason for this shrinkage is, above all, new technologies that increase acceleration exponentially in some cases. He explained that marketing is increasingly mutating into a tech job using the current example of Zalando, which recently disbanded its marketing team of 250 employees. The team was partially replaced with data analysts and so-called data scientists. Thus, Zalando operates digital marketing with algorithms instead of people. In summary, the IBM expert said: "Innovate like a start-up and scale like a large company".Refreshing was the contribution of Karin Bertschi from Recycling Paradies. She was able to present her business, which is positioned at the end of the "food chain", in a very tangible and down-to-earth way and to emphasize the educational role in the interest of changing behavior. The moderator, Patrizia Laeri, remained somewhat stuck in the platitudes here - she could have addressed the tension between marketing/consumption on the one hand and waste generation on the other.It became clear on this day that marketing is increasingly becoming a technology-driven discipline. This fact is confirmed by the fact that half of the IT budgets of companies are now the responsibility of the CMO.Against this background, one can expect that the topic of blockchain, which was only vaguely addressed by President Dominique von Matt, will be prominently addressed at the Trend Conference 2019.*Christoph Oggenfuss, Front Office Architect, CE-Owner markITing ag Zurich (www.markiting.ch)