Into The Pool

Welcome to The Beat by Rockstar CMO. I’m Ian Truscott, a 3xCMO, trusted advisor, strategy consultant and Chief Bottle Washer at Rockstar CMO. In this newsletter, I’d like to share a mix of what’s caught my eye from our community, our podcast and our street knowledge blog.

Hello!

I am sending this on Sunday of the Spring bank holiday weekend here in the UK and Memorial weekend for my friends in the US.

In my couple of tours of living on the East Coast of the US, and our children were children (rather than the young adults they are now), Memorial Weekend always signified the opening of pools in our neighbourhood.

If you have followed us for a long time, you’ll know that The Swimming Pool means something else to us. In tribute to the old rock stars who used to chuck things in swimming pools, it’s “our special place in hell for all the crap, bullshit acronyms, empty fads and snake oil that plague this marketing craft we love”.

And, when I would interview guests for the podcast, I would always ask what they would chuck into the pool, and occasionally, I would write it up in a special section on our blog.

When we started this series, I went first and nominated Agile Marketing (with a big A) for the swimming pool. I believe marketing is naturally agile (small a), and we don’t need yet another superfluous word to be put at the front of marketing, claiming to be something different.

You can read this rant here. It comes from a post I wrote back in 2017 for the blog of a vendor where I was the CMO (censhare).

Why do I mention this now? Aside from a tenuous link with the holiday and swimming pools? Why do you care?

Well, I recently wrote about a new potentially faddy term, “Frontline Marketing,” for CMSWire. I made a throwaway comment about being sceptical of terms like this and included Agile Marketing in my list, which created a little reaction.

So, some marketers believe that Agile Marketing is not a fad but a thing—a distinct and separate thing from good marketing.

Take a look at the links below. I’ve shared some stuff that argues for this and my case against it. I think the “agile marketing manifesto” is just what we do every day as marketing leaders. But I shared it here because I am curious and would love to hear from you.

So, is Agile a thing, or are we just agile? Now the pools are open, am I right to chuck it in?

Oh, and the title of this issue comes from Friendly Fires and their track “Into the Pool”

If you are enjoying a long weekend, have a good one!

Enjoy your week!

Cheers!

Ian

Ian Truscott | Chief Bottle Washer Rockstar CMO

Street Knowledge

Am I right to be sceptical? Here are some links…

On the podcast this week

Get your Monday Marketing Mojo Working

This week’s title is brought to you by Friendly Fires, but maybe wait until Tuesday to get your mojo really working: