2. Interesting Stuff - Paolo Provinciali

Flashier Isn’t Better: Choosing The Marketing Tech You’ll Actually Use

By Paolo - Monday 28th May, 2018

Let’s say you’ve got a loose stair that’s been driving you crazy because it springs up every time you step on it. You’ve decided to take care of it but don’t have a hammer. When you get to the store to pick one up, you see that your options are a standard hammer or one that promises to be industrial grade that’s made of the finest materials known to man. Everything about the second hammer screams superiority. It’s in a shinier package. It’s, in short, a better hammer. It also costs ten times more than the first hammer.

At that point, you may try to justify the “investment” by thinking you could use it to take on all those home improvement projects you’ve been putting off for a very long time. But once you take out the weekends you are going to be away, and the ones you have already blocked off for previous engagements, do you really have the time they would require to tackle them?

If all you’re going to use the hammer for is to repair your loose stair, is it really worth the investment?

Companies large and small make the mistake of being lured in by the promises of advanced technology platforms. To be sure, these platforms are truly innovative, and many can deliver on the promises they’ve made. However, when it comes to marketing technology, the value is determined by the features you actually use rather than the features that are available. You have to remember that your technology is a tool. Like any other tool, the way you use it is going to determine its worth. Continue reading

How to Manage Your Creative Agency for Great Digital Campaigns

By Paolo - Sunday 22nd April, 2018

Thanks to my job and my employees’ deep pockets, I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the best creative shops in the world (by the measure of the number of Cannes Lions awards won or the fee that they get paid). The best-known agencies employ great talent, and I’m often amazed by the clever and creative ideas they bring to the table. But the truth is that creative agencies are best at telling stories, while a key factor in digital creative performance is the ability to effectively get a message across to drive a behavior change. For this reason, the best work of these highly-awarded and highly-paid creative agencies comes across a 60″ TV spot, or through an execution that requires a summary showreel to make it all come together, while the digital creatives of an integrated plan are often less than impressive. Continue reading

Late-stage startups should part ways with their growth hacker

By Paolo - Sunday 6th August, 2017

Before I even get into the details of what I want to write about, let me set the record straight: growth hackers can often be instrumental in the success of an early-stage startup, and their skill set is undeniably valuable. Finding a great growth hacker for your new business could be the key to make it to Round A.

Also, marketing is not advertising. Advertising is placing a paid message on a media channel, marketing is the discipline of making your product, service, or company something that your target audience cannot live without. Marketing nowadays lives in the center of the Venn-diagram intersection between art and science, data and creativity.

Now that that’s out of the way, we can focus on what I want to talk about: although “growth hacker” is the hottest title in the startup world nowadays, it’s important to understand why this role is only relevant during the early life of a business, and late-stage startups need a Growth Team made of subject matter experts, that include a seasoned Marketing professional.

The Advertising value-exchange

By Paolo - Tuesday 4th April, 2017

When talking about the advertising value-exchange, people often think about the commercial relationship between the advertisers, publishers, vendors, and the many players in the marketing and media space. But what often gets overlooked in this equation is the most critical player of all: the consumer.

The most significant exchange in the advertising world happens between the advertiser that promotes an ad and the user that consumes that content.The most significant exchange in the advertising world happens between the advertiser that promotes an ad and the user that consumes that content. I’ve already written about ways to get the right message, in front of the right consumers, at the right time, but in this post, I want to discuss the reason why the consumer should pay attention to the message in the first place.

Surviving Innovation

By Paolo - Friday 23rd September, 2016

Throughout my professional career, innovation has always been the focus of the environment around me. Although it can often be an abused term, this proximity to groups aspiring to be innovative taught me a lot about this elusive concept. Recently, I started reflecting on some commonalities that I encountered when dealing with innovative companies, products, and teams, and I thought it could be interesting sharing them in a post.