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Who remembers the movie Moonstruck staring Cher and Nicholas Gage? It is a Norman Jewison directed romantic comedy about a woman engaged to one man but falls in love with his estranged younger brother. A little messy and a little perplexing especially for the woman’s grandfather, who, upon hearing the news towards the end of the film proclaims sympathetically, “I’m so confused”.

This must be how most marketers feel these days. Their professional lives are becoming increasingly complex on so many levels.

Consumer research, which was simply either quantitative or qualitative now has the added dimension of big data. One of the most cited pain points expressed by marketers is the amount of information they feel compelled to digest. They simply don’t have the time or recourses to properly exploit it. Big data can often cause big headaches.

Target groups are being replaced by multiple targets of one. Marketing communications is now a one-to-one dialogue, not a monologue. Brands have more opportunities than ever to listen to their customers.

And the coupe de gras, the biggest and most confusing challenge of all has to be media fragmentation and programmatic buying.

Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, just announced that brands can now advertise on Instagram in Canada. Great; Yet another media choice to add to our marketing arsenals. Does the world really need another advertising vehicle? Have we reached the tipping point when consumers finally scream “We’ve had enough, we can’t take it anymore” and toss their smarty pants phones down the nearest elevator shaft?

Little wonder marketing executives, whose average job tenure continues to decline, seem like the grandfather at the end of Moonstruck, bewildered and muttering, if not out loud, are surely thinking, “I’m so confused.”

My observation is that marketers are distracted by the latest shiny new object and tactics of marketing rather than the thinking of marketing and the championing of brands. They are afraid that if they don’t jump into the latest new social media or mobile platform, like advertising on Instagram, they will get left behind by their competitors.

Perhaps the answer is to allocate more resources on the thinking of marketing rather than the doing of marketing. To spend more time thinking about the destination rather than the potential avenues to reach that destination. As Lewis Carroll said, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there”.

To help picture the destination consider the following:

• Is your brand clearly defined?
• Is your brand differentiated not just functionally but emotionally too?
• Can everyone in your organization, especially at the most senior level articulate your brand promise with the same language?
• Do you employ brand zealots?
• Are they passionate about protecting and growing brand value?

Perhaps, just perhaps, the best way to avoid becoming overwhelmed by the ever growing number of advertising avenues is to focus more on the destination and less on which road to travel. To spend more time on the thinking of marketing and less time on the doing of it.

If you do maybe you won’t be muttering out loud or thinking “I’m so confused”, but rather, “I know where I’m going and now it is so much easier to figure out how to get there.”

Tony Altilia
Tony Altilia is a partner in Maxim Partners Inc. a Canadian Boutique Brand Consultancy and is a former President of DDB Canada. He is also authour of the book I Wish Someone Had Told Me That. Follow Tony on twitter @tony2altilia.