Whenever I see links with titles like “10 ways to get…” or “6 proven tactics to achieve…” I shudder. Same goes for diet books, career advice sites and any lists that try to tell you what to do. Media conferences are filled with case studies, successful implementations and amazing success stories. When Old Spice works, hundred of copies will be launched a month later. When one movie hit comes out of nowhere, hundreds of quasi-sequels will find their way to the screen quickly. Vampires everywhere, housewives everywhere, American Idols everywhere.

Have you ever copied the copy of a copy of a copy?

It doesn’t look fresh, it’s hard to decipher and feels tacky. That’s how customers feel when you follow the rules and copy the copy of a copy. When everybody copies each other, the original always wins. And the copies are just that: copies.

20 years ago, advertising had only one option to differentiate: through the creative. The channels were pretty much set, not many options to have meaningful impact through radical changes in the media mix.

20 years later, we have millions of options to connect a brand with a customer or prospect. Still, the majority of marketers continue to rely on proven tactics and copying success stories of their competitors. What does it mean to your brand when your competitor was able to lift sales by 50% through a Foursquare promotion? What does it say about your brand that your competitor has 50,000 more followers on Twitter than you? What does it say about your company when your competitor deployed sophisticated, behavioral targeting to lift engagement rates by 25%?

Nothing. Nada. Nichts.

Just because your competitor or any brand was successful with one specific tactic or media plan, doesn’t mean a carbon copy for your brand will produce the same results. More likely than not, the results will be way below your expectations.

I get it: You want to beat the competition, want to win, sell more than ever before. Following your competitors or act based on past learning is a losing game. Next time, you start a marketing initiative with a competitive review, why not focusing on doing the exact opposite? Why not staying away from implementing another average Facebook page and, instead, becoming the leader on a different platform? Why not implement a display campaign exactly the opposite way than your competitor? Following the rules has lead to bloated web pages, irrelevant Social Media initiatives, underperforming display ad campaigns and less than mediocre results.

Following the rules was a winning strategy in the industrial age. Breaking the rules is a winning strategy in the information age.

My daughter is in an interesting phase: She can read but she can’t comprehend fully what she’s reading. A picture book with a few sentences per page is perfect for her developmental stage. No, she wants to read a chapter book without any pictures. She proclaims proudly: “I’m on page 55.” When I ask her about the content, the answer is very sparse.

When she gets her homework, she wants to get it done in a few seconds: “Easy peesy, lemon squeezy.” Once I note a mistake, she freaks out and never wants to touch any homework again.

Typical behavior for brands in the emerging marketing space

Many brands have not yet fully deployed all basic digital marketing tools. Instead of focusing on getting the fundamentals right, they rather develop a comprehensive Social Marketing strategy.

Others have deserted Facebook/Twitter/YouTube presences. Why bother improving these important platforms for their brand? Let’s just start a Google+ page.

The fancy commercial not matching the dirty store layout.

The radio spot not matching the horrendous attitude of your employees.

The list is endless.

We should strive for innovation and amazing ideas.

First, we need to clean-up the store.

Change the attitude of employees.

Get the fundamentals of marketing right.

Get the fundamentals of the business right.

Then, and only then, should you consider the newest platform aka toy.

Many agencies have added social to their list of offerings. Some have added new people with specific skills to support/activate and engage social platforms. Other agencies just added social to the responsibilities of the media department.

That’s a big problem. Because social and digital are not the same.

A digital skillset involves software programming, interface design, content management, data management, analytics, media planning/buying, etc. That doesn’t mean you know anything about social.

When you are adept in the ways of Social Media, it’s also likely that you’re familiar with the technologies that support these communications. You understand the rules of engagement on Facebook; you know how to create a refined social advertising campaign; you can hop on CoTweet and know exactly what you’re doing; you’re focusing on the right metrics and deliver. That doesn’t mean you know anything about digital.

In good agencies, digital marketing services are organically integrated with Social Media. It doesn’t make it any less distinct a discipline.

The biggest difference: the mindset.

Digital and interactive are primarily either one-to-one or one-to-many communication forms.

Social is many-to-many communications. And that makes all the difference.

In one-to-one communication, the brand (in this case) knows what it wants to communicate, and perhaps has some idea about who it is talking to.

One-to-many communication is the most prevalent form of broadcast with the hope that the message is something that the target audience will appreciate and take action on.

Social is many-to-many, and here the crux is uncertainty. Brands may assume that they know what they are getting into, who they are talking to but they can’t predict the reaction.

Digital does not require any internal attitude change or rallying of other divisions – it is merely extending the brands’ communication into yet another broadcast media.

Social requires a different mindset and the understanding that brands are just incidental to the conversation online.

Apples and oranges.

My daughter is in an interesting phase: She can read but she can’t comprehend fully what she’s reading. A picture book with a few sentences per page is perfect for her developmental stage. No, she wants to read a chapter book without any pictures. She proclaims proudly: “I’m on page 55.” When I ask her about the content, the answer is very sparse. When she gets her homework, she wants to get it done in a few seconds: “Easy peesy, lemon squeezy.” Once I note a mistake, she freaks out and never wants to touch any homework again.

Typical behavior for brands in the emerging marketing space

Many brands have not yet fully deployed all basic digital marketing tools. Instead of focusing on getting the fundamentals right, they rather develop a comprehensive Social Marketing strategy.

Others have deserted Facebook/Twitter/YouTube presences. Why bother improving these important platforms for their brand? Let’s just start a Pinterest page.

The fancy commercial not matching the dirty store layout.

The radio spot not matching the horrendous attitude of your employees.

The list is endless.

We should strive for innovation and amazing ideas

First, we need to clean-up the store.

Change the attitude of employees.

Get the fundamentals of marketing right.

Get the fundamentals of the business right.

Then, and only then, should you consider the newest platform aka toy.