Your Market Doesn’t Exist

The following is republished with the permission of the Association of National Advertisers. Find this and similar articles on ANA Newsstand.

By Pat Connolly

Marketing is at a crossroads … again. And it’s not because of cookies, content, or commerce. It’s because consumers are changing faster than companies can evolve.

Recent Accenture research reveals that a new global majority of consumers has emerged from the pandemic with wildly different values and motivations. They’re ready to abandon brands and products that don’t support their new values, and they’re asking companies to find new ways to solve their problems.

Simply put, consumers want companies to innovate — fast — but the rules have changed. Incremental improvements to existing products and services won’t cut it, and those who continue to search for growth in existing markets may find they’re trying to reach a group of consumers who are no longer there.

Today’s consumers are looking for products that don’t exist yet. They want companies to solve the problems that no one else is solving, so they can stop finding workarounds and get their needs met. The companies that do this well don’t just create new products — they create categories, disrupt industries, and change the way people live, work, travel, and play. Disproportionate growth follows.

On the surface, this may sound obvious. Doesn’t every innovation meet a consumer need? The difference is that for companies going after unmet needs, no market yet exists. Unlike traditional innovation, which goes after existing markets in new ways, this approach is about solving problems for which there is no current solution, and therefore no market. Herein lies the magic — and the uncertainty.

For companies accustomed to seeing projections based on a clearly defined total addressable market (TAM), investing in a new product, service, or venture where the market value is unknown can seem risky. The irony is that the failure rate for innovations that pursue known markets remains sky-high.

This new approach to growth requires a new kind of leader — one who is bold enough and empathetic enough to lead their business into the unknown, while inspirational enough to rally the C-suite around this new agenda. In many ways, marketers are perfectly positioned to do this, and the need has never been more urgent.

While it’s always been true that a business needs great products and great marketing to be successful, in today’s world, great marketing can’t save a so-so product, and products don’t become great without marketing. Here are a few reasons why marketers should feel empowered to lead this new growth agenda within their organizations:

No One Understands Consumers (and Companies) Better

Finding new whitespace based on unmet needs requires a deep knowledge of two things: something consumers need that they’re not getting today, and how a company can uniquely meet that need. Marketers understand their consumers from many angles — including, in many cases, what they need but aren’t getting. Crucially, they also understand where their company has the assets and the permission to play. They know how to mine data from multiple sources for insight into what consumers need and why, and they also know how to look beyond the data to find and take opportunities that others can’t.

Marketers Don’t Put All Their Eggs in One Basket

Companies that invest well in new whitespace take a portfolio approach to investing in and governing new growth initiatives to balance risk and allow themselves to make big, bold moves into the unknown.

Marketing leaders are well positioned to lead the charge on this. They’re accustomed to making and defending strategic investments based on incomplete and fragmented data, projecting future value without reliable priors, and managing a portfolio of investments to balance risk and return.

Marketers Know How to Shapeshift

The era of big breakthrough innovations is dead. Those who can perpetually adapt to meet their customers’ needs in radically new ways will outperform those who don’t. This requires a new level of agility. The desire for agility among business leaders is so strong that it has become clichéd, yet many businesses are challenged to make it happen, especially when it comes to new growth.

This is because creating an agile, adaptable growth engine demands a shift in thinking, not just doing. Companies that are world-class at this have the operating model, talent, and technology to make constant adaptation possible, yes, but they also nurture a growth mindset in their leaders and teams. They’re courageous enough (and humble enough) to see every move they make as an opportunity to learn more about the customers they serve and to walk away from ideas when they’re not hitting the mark.

If there’s one thing marketing leaders know how to do well, it’s to adapt. No other business function has seen quite as much innovation and disruption, and marketers have pivoted to take advantage of every new opportunity to create meaningful experiences for their customers. Experimentation has become part of the modern marketer’s DNA, right alongside deep customer empathy and a graveyard of ideas that they’ve courageously, and humbly, killed.

As companies around the world grapple with growth in a transformed world, and consumers demand more and more from the brands they do business with, it’s never been more crucial for marketing leaders to take charge and turn unmet needs into new products, services, and business opportunities.

This new kind of growth needs new kinds of leadership, and the modern marketer is made for it.

About Author: Pat Connolly is global growth and business design lead at Accenture Interactive, a partner in the ANA Thought Leadership Program.