Embrace the new complexity

Markets have always had their complexities. Anyone who has been in the business for as long as I have will attest to that. But there’s a new complexity with the explosion of touchpoints and channels, sources of influence, and changes in buying habits and journeys. To cope, the marketing industry has opted to simplify and standardise. Marketing thought leaders advised us simply to: ‘outspend to outcompete’, ‘forget the hard work of finding a point of difference, just be distinctive’. This advice is not incorrect, but it’s an unhelpful oversimplification. The truth is that reach and distinctiveness are not relevance, and relevance is what drives purchase behaviour. 

It’s this drive to oversimplify markets and marketing that has held brands back from the rate of growth they’re capable of achieving. The focus on simplification should read ‘shortcut’, or at best ‘incomplete’, and followers will undoubtedly find their marketing outcomes are either budget-hungry or just fail to meet expectation.  

It’s time to stop pretending it’s easy, that there’s a simple solution to every problem. Because the reality is that there is no easy fix, easy answer, or simple rule. Effective marketing is complex, and brands seeking new growth need a partner that is comfortable in that complexity.  

Technology has given us the opportunity to identify and target where previously inaccessible market opportunities reside, and to create more personalised and intimate experiences leading to stronger attraction, engagement and greater conversion. To accelerate growth, brands need a marketing partner able to help them do what their competition is not doing. Because how can we outcompete if we’re following exactly the same rules as everyone else?  A partner that embraces the new complexity and turns it to advantage. We believe that by putting in the hard yards to understand the knotty intricacies and interdependencies of audiences, new cultural and social influences, of channels and buying journeys, brands can side-step their competitors and accelerate their growth.  

But so many brands are missing out on opportunity just because the traditional agency model isn’t working in today’s environment. It means that marketing programmes are less effective, as typically, component parts are conceived in isolation and then stitched together. Whereas marketing for the new complexity needs a model that orchestrates talent, tech and a full suite of specialist capabilities around brand-to-demand journeys where performance and outputs are measured end to end.  

It’s not just how we’re structured and how we work that makes Gravity different. It’s with our analytics model, F.A.B. – Fame, Admiration, Belief – that we’ve cracked the conundrum that has always confounded the marketing industry. Not only does F.A.B. solve the orchestration challenge to optimise the complete marketing programme for maximum efficiency and return, but it allows us to very accurately diagnose where marketing efforts are not performing to the level of the competition. . In fact, F.A.B is data-driven magic taking the guesswork out of how to boost a brand’s market impact and take advantage of opportunity, without just throwing more budget at the problem. 

We’re not for the faint-hearted, because at Gravity we’re comfortable being uncomfortable. We sweat the small stuff, lean into complexity on our clients’ behalf and realise the opportunities they would otherwise miss out on.