An occasional column, Simon Hadfield In Conversation.
This time it is Mark Ritson, ex professor at places like MIT, London Business School and Melbourne Business School. Founder of the Marketing Week Mini MBA, lover of English farm vehicles and random dogs.
You have an interesting scholastic background teaching marketing, have you ever hankered for a nice big stressful CMO role?
One of the great cliches thrown at me, especially here in Aus, is “those who can’t, teach”. I was always keen to point out that my consulting life meant I had about fifty times the experience of the moron making the comment. I’d occasionally bet them $50,000 online that I had more experience than them. No-one ever took the bet. But going completely native and getting a proper job was something I never ended up doing. I almost became the CMO of a very large American retailer. My wife had signed off and we’d sold the car. But the deal went South. Weirdly, Donald Trump nixed it. So we stayed in Tasmania instead and I continued making stupid online bets with morons.
Your Mini MBA course seems to have done really well and gained great traction, what do you put the success down to?
Mostly me. Sorry I know we are supposed to project false modesty in these things. You know, “I am humbled by my success etc etc”. But in the case of the Mini MBA it was down to two things to do with me. First, I’d actually taught real MBA students in a real way for 25 years. Most people offering these online courses haven’t actually taught anyone before. In most cases they don’t even have a formal training in the thing they are teaching! Second, and this still amazes people, I used the marketing skills I teach on the course to develop the course. Research, targeting, positioning, price analysis…the whole shebang. Almost like I know what I am talking about.
Tasmania is a beautiful part of the world; how did you end up there?
My wife is from Cygnet in the Huon Valley. I met her in a bar in London. Next thing I knew I was fixing up a house in the middle of nowhere. Next stop Antarctica. People ask me; “What’s it like living in Hobart?” and I say; “I’ve no idea. I live 60 minutes south of there”. It’s become very cool to be Tasmanian in recent years. At the start of the Century it was not cool. It was cold. But not cool.
What are your observations on the current marketing / advertising industry?
Getting better. Australia’s big problem was that distance x smallness bred oligopolies in most categories. Until 2000 each domestic category had 2 or 3 dominant players. They each enjoyed 30% of the category, crazy profitability and had no need for strong brands, market orientation or innovation. But foreign competition came at the turn of the century and changed all of that. Thanks to Aldi, Zara, Costco and Netflix Australian marketers had had to catch up and, pound for pound, I’d put us ahead of the Americans these days.
Any work you’ve seen recently that you admire?
Globally you have to love the work that McDonalds and KFC are doing. Both are killing it. I am a big Brent Smart fan. His tenure at IAG was a high water mark, fascinated to see what he does at Telstra. The other brand I continue to learn from is Aldi. Unstoppable.
What have you learnt in the last 5 years?
That marketing is full of binary extremes and the tyranny of the “or”. Long versus Short. Digital versus Traditional. ATL versus BTL. Creativity versus Research. Target marketing versus Mass marketing. When faced with these false choices you need to take a bothist approach and liberate your thinking with the generosity of “and”. A bit of both things is invariably the best approach. It’s harder to do than it sounds.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Get laid more. I went through my early 20s thinking I was a “3” when really I was a “5”. Maybe a “5 and a half”. I didn’t go around thinking I was the elephant man or anything but I should have mingled more when I was younger. It’s downhill from about 28. But you only realise that when you’re 55.
Outside of business, what keeps you out of trouble?
I have dogs. Many dogs. Rescue dogs. Other people’s dogs. Dogs I do not recognise. Lots of dogs. The most recent is my daughter’s Collie/Kelpie/Jack Russell cross that we adopted. She’s actually worse than she sounds – the dog not the daughter. Madder than a bag of spanners and in love with me. She wakes me at 4am every morning by chewing my nose and urinating on me. As I head to the coffee machine she leaps at my nuts and then just hangs from the crutch of my PJ bottoms all the way to the kitchen. I often think about Leonardo Di Caprio or Richard Gere and how they must start each day with yoga, a handjob, and someone in a uniform cooking them crepes. I think about that a lot. While trying to make coffee with a little black dog hanging from my knackers, growling.
What are you driving, what are you listening to and what are you watching?
I used to drive German cars. Fast ones. But I have reverted to my mother country and drive a Land Rover. The little Defender V8. I’d love to tell you that the locals respect me now that I drive a more agricultural vehicle. But they still think I am a wanker. I know that. They know that. I know that they know that. When I owned a couple of Porsches I had a sticker on the back window of each of them saying “My Other Car is a Porsche”. So in some ways things have got better. But not really.
I listen to a lot of John Barry. I love John Barry. All the early jazz right the way through his Bond music to his last soundtracks and the “Beyondness of Things”. Genius. He was a cinema projectionist’s son from York. Proper working class. But if you listen to the big stars of the Sixties he was the one they all looked up to. Michael Caine thought he was the coolest thing walking. Shacked up with Jean Shrimpton, driving an E-Type, drinking Dom Perignon and smashing out “You Only Live Twice” when they needed a tune. At his memorial at the Albert Hall they just cheered and cheered every song. Very moving.
I’m a Dad so I watch kids shows on YouTube on a doom loop of perkiness. It all blurs into one long thing. I sat my daughter down last week and we watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I hadn’t seen in it in 30 years. But I’d heard an interview with Tarantino where he listed movies that weren’t necessarily his favourites but which were perfect. Ferris Bueller was one of them. And he was right, as usual. I stayed up last night with a big bottle of proper red and watched The Thomas Crown Affair. Not the McQueen one, that’s empty pants. The Brosnan one. It’s a masterpiece. It shouldn’t be because Brosnan is usually cardboard. But he nails this one. And Rene Russo is literally perfect.
Where is your next holiday?
We were about to go to the UK as a family. I go all the time for work. But the family were coming too this time because my daughter is six and ready for long haul life. But then my wife got pregnant. I blame her of course. So now we expect another sprog in July. No holidays for a while. Also, no sleep. No movies. No dinners. No tequila. No crossbow parties. Nothing for a while.
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.