New Blog Posts - Paolo Provinciali

Four Ps

By Paolo - Wednesday 27th March, 2024

Anyone with a Business or Marketing degree has likely heard of the following framework from the illustrious marketing professor Philip Kotler.

Marketing is the combination of the 4Ps: Price, Product, Promotion, and Place.

While many can agree with it, when we think of Marketing in most companies and business circles, we tend to focus on a subset of one P: Promotion.

If you reacted to the previous sentence by thinking, “Yeah, that’s kind of true,” you may be interested in taking a few minutes to think if your Marketing team is doing everything it’s supposed to do in your company.

Controversial Marketing Hot-Take #1

By Paolo - Monday 15th January, 2024

In October last year, I thought of starting a series of posts on 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀. I posted one a day for four days straight. This was the first one. "𝙄𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙘𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙖𝙞𝙜𝙣 𝙗𝙤𝙢𝙗𝙨, 𝙞�…

Incentives and Leverage

By Paolo - Sunday 29th October, 2023

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”
Archimedes

How do you get things done in your professional life? Simple: understand the incentives and find the leverage.

In the early part of your career, as an individual contributor, you can exceed expectations and gain leverage by being incredibly good at your job. You may do it with your skills and talent or by working harder than others.

Later in your career, though, being great at your job is not enough. You need the intuition to see an untapped opportunity beyond your day-to-day job (a.k.a. “white space”) and the ability to seize it.

It’s no longer an individual matter. Even if you have the vision for company-wide improvement and a clear articulation of its value, the people you need may have no incentive to help you.

When this happens, you may need more leverage to make your needs their priority.

Misaligned incentives are pervasive in corporate environments, and they are usually a combination of suboptimal management decisions and a complex business environment. Over the years, I learned not to let them frustrate me, but use them to my advantage.

Being Human in the Age of Generative AI

By Paolo - Sunday 2nd April, 2023

[Featured image by Andy Kelly on Unsplash]

Discussions about generative AI are everywhere right now, and I feel compelled to add my take to the mix. However, I’m hoping to bring you something a little different. Rather than focus on the endless world of possibilities generative AI will create or the jobs it will destroy, I want to step back.

Instead of focusing on the AI itself, I want to focus on the people — that’s us — who are going to have to adjust to stay relevant in the age of generative AI.

What traits will keep us relevant in the age of generative AI?

Interesting Things You May Not Know About Super Bowl Advertising

By Paolo - Thursday 9th February, 2023

(written in February 2023, updated February 2024)

Advertising during the Super Bowl is a privilege for any advertising professional, not only because of the one hundred million people tuning in every year — making it the most watched program in the US — but also because of the incredible amount of resources it takes to buy a spot, develop an ad, and execute a campaign correctly.

Between 2018 and 2022, I’ve had the privilege of leading Paid Media for Anheuser Busch, the biggest in-game advertiser. Since this is the first year in a while I don’t have to worry about putting out fires and negotiating last-minute requests related to running 4-8 ads in the Super Bowl, I thought it would be fun sharing some of what I’ve learned.

Here are ten lesser-known things about Super Bowl advertising and some of my tips from experience.