Why you need to “moneyball” your comms strategy
Comms strategy has become too ultra-processed for its own good. We default to media and messaging and behaviour choices which are cheap, abundant and fast, but often that comes at the expense of their nutritional value. On the other hand, we also don’t just want to default to large and expensive media placements regardless of their actual value, just because this is how big brands do things. There must be an answer for the rest of us.
This is the background to what Sam Fowler, Chief Strategy Officer at Craft Media London, brought to our latest Salmon Crew event. It was a mix of understanding what “moneyballing” is all about, and how it comes to life through two case studies: Games Workshop and Octopus Energy.
Below you will find the full recording, and key themes from the session. Including a few questions Sam didn’t have time to answer on the call, but was kind enough to answer afterwards on email. Thanks to Sam, everyone who joined this session, and all Salmon Crew members. Appreciate ya.
Why we need a more “moneyball” approach to comms strategy
CFOs are increasingly the direct clients of media and comms briefs, which means there’s greater demand for tight, line-by-line budget control. This means that marketing needs to give ‘the arts’ part of the job the same trust and firepower that pseudoscientific clickbait has enjoyed for so long.
What is “moneyballing” in marketing or comms strategy?
“Moneyballing” is an idea based on Billy Beane's baseball approach of using data to find undervalued players that others have overlooked. In marketing, this shouldn’t be an excuse for cheap processed media choices, but rather an open invitation to use data-backed predictions that give strategists secure alternative starting points for less processed thinking.
How Octopus Energy became the #1 energy provider in the UK
Octopus Energy has now become the UK’s largest energy provider, recently overtaking British Gas after ten years of trading, while British Gas has been around since 1812. They spend approximately £110 million annually on marketing, 90% of which goes to low-cost, low-frill placements.
They buy roughly 50% of their OOH inventory at the last minute as unsold remnant inventory, while managing all buying and creative work in-house. They practise “moneyballing” by spotting pockets of value everywhere.
How Games Workshop became more valuable than Burberry
Games Workshop is the British board game company behind Warhammer 40,000 and characters like the orc Boss Gulgortz, which holds a market capitalization over £6.4 billion. This makes them more valuable than Burberry, or Aston Martin and Aston Martin F1 combined.
On the other hand, Games Workshop spends under £1,000 on direct mass-market advertising, instead licensing their intellectual property to partners like Amazon and mobile game developers like Snow Print, while licensees spend around £15 million annually on targeted digital ads.
They practise “moneyballing” by maximising the value of their IP and targeting fans instead of mass crowds, while others do their advertising.
What we can learn from Octopus Energy and Games Workshop
The core idea behind the success of Octopus Energy and Games Workshop is that they both find pockets of value by being laser focused on their core customers and fans. Octopus invests heavily in customer service and support, and Games Workshop invests in world-building lore and anti-AI content creation. PwC found that many global businesses fail to properly service their existing customers despite their financial importance. By “moneyballing”, both these brands show this approach can succeed.
The “moneyball” comms strategy framework
Traditional planning always follows a similar process. There’s a standard briefing process, then strategic development, then creative development, and over time the thinking gets watered down as you try to fit a media plan.
With “moneyball” comms strategy, you start with foundational human questions at a much more upstream level, such as “why a business exists”, “what loyal customers believe” and “how are we collectively seen”. Then you use these to allocate 10% of your effort or money to deliver potentially high return, less processed comms and commercial opportunities.
How the five Ps can help you “moneyball” your comms strategy
The five Ps (Promotion, Place, Price, People, Product) can be powerful ways to uncover undervalued spaces. Promotion examines wasted efforts when making too many ads. Place helps question expected timelines or locations. Price can help re-evaluate the role of premium media formats. People helps explore the effort around less valuable audiences. Product explores the role of IP creation and promoting fewer products. This type of forensic historical analysis can create more space in plans without adding unnecessary risk.
The most common mistakes in comms strategy
Jumping to execution too quickly without rigorous multi-sided examination. Traditional media agencies default to fitting briefs into channel squares and rectangles, while creative agencies often focus on big ideas while ignoring budget and channel realities (and sometimes even audience realities).
How to improve creative and media agency collaboration
Meet informally, away from clients. Go to a coffee shop, or a pub, to talk through problems. Understand how the other agency makes money. Understand media trading mechanics and ad verification processes. Ask media agencies for research and data, they often sit on a lot of it that they rarely use. Speak to other agency leads without waiting for official meetings.
The skills junior strategists should be learning today
Develop numerical and data handling skills. Study effectiveness papers that rely on this skill, like Sainsbury’s IPA paper “Try something new today”. Study philosophy, politics and economics to develop your own critical thinking and know how the world works. Train presentation and sales skills. Find ways to get exposed to qualitative research and ethnographic practices.
What’s the value of stakeholder or expert interviews in a comms project?
Bake in thirty-minute sessions with senior stakeholders in B2B businesses, asking three consistent questions alongside a specialized curveball question to identify points of tension and organizational politics.
While you should prepare for specific individuals and their particular specialisms, there are a few go-to questions that work universally:
What do we need to know (about x or y) that you don’t think other members of your team have said, or will say?
How could improved brand/business comms make your role easier?
How have the demands of customers/ partners changed over the last 12 months, and how do you expect them to evolve in the next 12?
This helps stakeholders open up on what knowledge they believe they hold which is important, it helps define roles of comms or internal barriers if you do get push back, and you get a rich view of customers and prospects.
Where can we learn the fundamentals of media and comms strategy?
Get familiar with industry trade bodies like Thinkbox, Newsworks, Outsmart, and Radiocentre. Study papers on media effectiveness from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Always keep a critical perspective with everything you read, cross-check sources, and question orthodoxy.
What is the most under-used media platform?
Client customer relationship management databases, because they give you a potentially huge insight into where you can find under-used pockets of value. And direct mail, which is now proven to be a ‘super touchpoint’.
What's the threat to an org too reliant on ultra-processed comms strategy?
Probably not a lot, if they are happy to keep reducing workforces and offshoring and making a margin on trading. On the other hand, the value of taste and human curiosity and the ability to plan again is going to get more valued and treated like a necessity. Organisations that are too reliant on ultra-processed comms strategy might not be the best clients or interesting briefs, so focus on the ones that want to see you as a partner for change.
What's the most profitable thing a strategist can sell?
The cheeky answer is “themselves”. The sensible answer is a non-obvious but brilliantly simple solution, for which the next two to three steps are clear for the purchaser. Depending on your level, the clarity and reduced time messing around is what a client wants.
What types of data sources do you use to find new pockets of value?
It really differs by project and category. Start with what the client or business can, and will, share. The most interesting answers are always hiding in plain sight there. Ideally get a 4-5 year view backwards, so you can spot more patterns. 85% of the answers are usually already held within the business.
Then build out to tools and systems alongside category appropriate media owner data and resources. The big consultancies are always a good source of detailed market data too, if you are trying to do it on the cheap.
How do you think about earning people’s trust when questioning fundamentals?
This is always on a case-by-case basis. A lot of my early engagement with a project is based on listening, trying to understand the human relationships and where the tension is. Operate as part of the team not as a supplier.
Within a holding company, try to assimilate with their 'machine' as much as possible, whilst instigating a change by partnering with particular agencies who want to deliver something more interesting. In a more independent business, like Craft felt like for the first few years, you have to be willing to stretch across roles and points of view, while always pulling back to the person who is signing the work off or paying you.
What lessons have you learned about selling more unconventional approaches, that are undervalued, in a simple way so that clients buy in and aren't scared?
I once took a client to the National Portrait Gallery for a meeting, and sat in front of The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein The Younger when I wanted to do something clever for a cider brand. The neutral or unconventional location definitely helps, as it reframes the mind.
When it’s more day to day, I find coming from a place of reasonable optimism is the best way. Let’s say you notice that the approach to emails or CRM feels 'dead' with a client. The first question isn't “why are these so bland?” It might be, “what’s the resource like for the CRM team?” Or, “would it be helpful if PR and partnerships teams shared content with the CRM team so they had other topics to write about?”
So find the undervalued space, but build bridges and understand the root cause to see what a better future could look like. That goes a long way.
More articles about comms strategy
Why social strategy and communications strategy are merging (and what it means for you)
Brand vs comms strategy: 12 blunt questions answered by two honest strategists
To blend social and comms strategy, combine rigour and restlessness
10 uncomfortable truths about brand and comms strategy in regulated industries
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Written by Rob Estreitinho, a comms and social strategy consultant and the founder of Salmon Labs. You might also enjoy getting my newsletter. 6,000 readers at a 60% open rate, read by agency and in-house strategy leaders from all five continents. Subscribe below.
