Developing Rules So They Can Be Broken Properly

Posted by Robert Rose on Nov 9, 2010

I’m a big fan of John Stewart.   I think The Daily Show is one of the best written television shows on the air.   It’s amazing to me how every single day, despite how quickly the news moves – they manage to stay relevant, quick and most of all hysterically funny.

Last week, Stewart was on Terry Gross’ NPR show Fresh Air for a 45 minute interview where he discussed the operations of The Daily Show, his role in the national media and of course his recent Rally to Restore Sanity event in Washington.

It’s a wonderful interview and I couldn’t recommend it more highly.  And, one of his comments really resonated with me as something that I’ve been discussing with clients recently.

What Are The Rules of Engagement?

I’ve been working with a number of clients recently on both Content Marketing and Social Web strategies for marketing.    With both processes – there always comes a time when we discuss governance issues.  Now, this might come in the form of a workflow process (for content marketing) or a set of rules or covenants (for Social Media usage).  But whatever the case, we nevertheless start discussing whether it’s better to keep things more “free-form” and loose – or whether to operate from a set of “rules” (or guidelines) that will enforce a certain behavior.

Let’s be clear – in the abstract, marketing rules, workflows and guidelines are easy.  For consultants or team leaders to develop sets of rules is very easy.  You simply crack open Microsoft Powerpoint, draw up some boxes and arrows, color it in, copy and paste them into pretty Word documents – save as PDF and say “revel in my genius”.

In the real marketing world, content rules of engagement and workflows are HARD.  They involve politics, workarounds, compromises, difficult personalities and – most difficult of all – actual consequences for a lack of adherence.  What should happen when that content marketing web site, slowly bleeds into a promotional marketing hot mess?

In short – for most marketers – rules and guidelines and processes suck.  It’s in our nature to want to be gunslingers, and make it up as we go – and to improvise.  Hell, that’s where we really earn our money right?  To be… dare I say it.. an Adaptive Marketer!!

We Need Rules So We Can Break Them

So, in the interview with John Stewart, Terry Gross was asking him about the grind at The Daily Show”. He responded by saying how surprised he thought we’d all be by how regimented it all is.   And, the comment that he made that really resonated with me was this:

“I’m a real believer in that creativity comes from limits, not freedom.  Freedom, I think you don’t know what to do with yourself.  But when you have a structure, then you can improvise off it and feel confident enough to kind of come back to that”

That’s an incredibly important lesson to us as marketers.  If we set up our marketing processes: our demand generation engines, our social media strategies, our content marketing editorial workflow – with a strong emphasis on governance – we can then improvise off of that governance.  In short – we have rules so that we know when we’re breaking them.

How About An Example…

Okay – here are 2 content marketing “rules” and 1 Social Media “workflow” that, while I agree with establishing them 100%,  I’ve personally helped clients to break to absolutely positive effects:

1. Content Marketing Should Never Be Promotional
   This rule states that content marketing will never excite or engage prospects if it even smells a little like a promotional marketing piece.   This one is an obvious one – but I’ve definitely seen instances where either the content marketing was so over the top promotional (e.g. such as this Absolut video from Zach Galifanakis) or was purposely created to be just subtle enough (think inline advertising in a podcast) that it works.  The key is to know where the line is – so we can consciously cross it.
2. Content Marketing Should Be Educational, Deliver Value And Position The Company As A Thought Leader
   While this one is really project specific – I’ve seen it enough times to know that while it’s a good rule – it’s made to be broken.  And it’s especially made to be broken by B2B marketers.   Have a look at Toyota’s Swagger Wagon videos and tell me that this is about education and positioning Toyota as a “thought leader”.  It’s just good clean entertainment.   And, for B2B – check out this wonderful video from HR Company Accolo.  Their parody of the Paris Hilton Carl’s Junior commercial drove no “value” that I can think of (other than huge laughs) but brought huge awareness and results for them.
3. Your Social Media Policy Should Include Everything That Employees Can And Can’t Say.
   Put this rule into the agenda for a Social Media Marketing Meeting and watch people physically shudder.  I’ve been in some (especially larger) organizations where just the mere mention of this rule is enough to completely shut down any and all social media efforts.  I mean why bother – right?

   But of course you should bother.  The key is realizing that this rule exists and then *choosing* that you’re going to either break it  (or for how long)– or not implement it at first – or phase it in with a smaller team first.

Marketing Lessons From The Dalai Lama?

So, of course those three rules above aren’t the only ones – and in fact that’s kind of the point.  In the end, as marketers we need to develop and learn our own “rules” and “regimens” so that we (as the Dalai Lama said so eloquently: “know how to break them properly”.

I’d love to hear some of yours.  What marketing rules and workflow processes do you have that you’re consciously breaking to positive effects?