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Attribution, Competition and
Military Tactics in Digital
Marketing
Scott Sunderland
www.scottsunderland.net
Is it possible to build
an accurate
Attribution model?
I’ve looked around the literature
Sethi Model (1983) - includes effectiveness of advertising
Effectiveness
of Advertising
Factor
Word of Mouth
Factor
Duopoly Extension
Sorger (1989)
i = brand
mi(t) = market share
ρi= ad effectiveness
ui = the ad spending level of brand i that depends on both own and competitor’s shares (i.e., ui(m1, m2))
Notice the
competitor
spend and
market share
factors
N-brand Oligopoly Markets
Naik, Prasad, Sethi (2007)
The main point here is that marketing awareness is explained by a combination of
your actions, your competitors actions and random variation
Attribution is
massively in
demand
But as an industry ( and our
academic friends agree)
we know how complicated
it is to assign credit to
various marketing
channels.
I wanted to investigate this
idea of competition
Can lessons from
military tactics be
applied to digital
marketing?
Answer = Yes
An overview of military strategy literature
Two classic military strategists really dominate the literature:
Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz.
Most modern military doctrine is based on their ideas.
In modern times we’ve had technological advancements and
‘new ideas’ from the likes of Donald Rumsfeld (more on
that later)
Sun Tzu
● Born 544 BC
● Evan Spiegel forced his staff to
read “Art of War” after Mark
Zuckerberg tried to buy Snapchat
Mission or "the Way". Gain the
respect and trust of your army
(organisation). Also the
importance of communication.
Gather as much information as
you can on yourself, your
competitors and the
environment you operate in.
"Know yourself and Know your
enemy and you will never lose"
Choose when and where to
engage, don’t have this chosen
for you. <- first mover
Carl von Clausewitz
● Born 1780
● Wrote the famous “On War”
● Famous quote: “War is the
continuation of politics by other
means”
WAR IS A FASCINATING TRINITY:
Primordial violence / blind natural
force; (irrational)
Chance and probability (non-
rational)
Policy and reason. (rational)
War cannot be quantified or
reduced to mapwork, geometry, and
graphs.
Donald Rumsfeld
● Born 1932
● Former US Secretary of Defence
● Advocated for the war in Iraq
Well - let’s just watch the video shall
we...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=GiPe1OiKQuk
But there’s another...
Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek came up with a fourth category, the
unknown known.
He criticised Rumsfeld saying “the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main
dangers lie in the "unknown knowns"—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and
obscene practices we pretend not to know about.”
Digital Marketing Industry - perhaps?
Another description of these unknown knowns is: the things you think you knew,
but in fact that you did not.
Why is this important?
Well if it’s not totally obvious - in war and life (and definitely digital attribution!)
there are a whole host of unknown unknowns
Point being, we are always going to have to accept a certain amount of
(sometimes total) uncertainty when dealing with complicated systems and
decisions.
Hence we need to act accordingly
Modern Military Issues / Concerns
Micromanagement: Generals are now able to micro-manage engagements from the
other side of the world. But they only see what camera sees.
Old Fashioned Management: Military leaders are learning (re-learning) how to
delegate properly.
Keep it Simple: George C. Marshall - simple so every lieutenant understands
Machine Learning: Real-Time Adversarial Intelligence and Decision Making systems
MILITARY TACTICS IN
DIGITAL MARKETING
Summary of what’s important
Researching some of the famous military tacticians - this is what I found important in
terms of Digital Marketing:
1. Get trust and respect from your team.
2. Know yourself and your enemies
3. Use Combined Arms
4. Good Team Structure/Communication
5. Decision Making
TRUST
1. Get trust and respect from
your team.
a. Is everyone in your organisation
facing the same way, for the right
reasons?
b. Sun Tzu says respect is gained by
genuinely caring for your staff, but
also being very disciplined and
strict when you need to be,
including on yourself.
KNOW
1. Know yourself and your
enemies
a. Take the proper time to:
b. Research your market
c. Profile your audience
i. Follow your best customers
(eg Twitter). See what
channels they are on.
d. Profile your competitors
e. Have a system in place to monitor
these ongoing.
f. Be diligent.
COMBINED ARMS
1. Combined Arms
a. Artillery, Infantry and cavalry all
have their strengths and
weaknesses. They work much
better together.
b. Therefore being on one marketing
channel is borderline suicidal.
c. “Guerrilla Marketing” says this
should be at least 20 channels!
TEAM STRUCTURE
1. Team
Structure/Communication
a. Everything needs to be integrated.
b. Working in Silos = NO.
c. PR especially, but all channels
really - have to work extremely
closely with all campaigns.
d. If a small team keep the messaging
more simple. Larger teams can be
more complex
DECISION MAKING
1. Decision Making
a. Von Clausewitz said simple models
do not work and war is far too
complex to model this way.
b. Instead always factor in random
error to your judgements.
c. Accept that you have emotional
biases of your own - and that
others do too.
d. Be humble.
A point on smaller v larger companies
Throughout history armies much smaller than larger armies have prevailed. This was
nearly always achieved with a combination of the below:
1. Leadership
a. Xenophon leading 10,000 Greek Hoplites on a long march through Persia and back to Europe
the whole time being pursued by a larger force
2.Geography
a. 300 Spartans standing at the choke point of Thermopylae.
3. Technology
a. Mongol compound bow. Note: Technological advantage only lasts until the technology becomes
widely adopted.
A point on smaller companies cont’d
4.Strategy/Tactics
a. Alexander used a cavalry feint to the right and then cut back into the opposing center. Since the
center is where the opposing king was, this caused surprise and chaos and cut off the head of
the opposing force
5.Discipline
a. The classic Roman legion would routinely beat larger barbarian forces by simply being
disciplined.
b. It is the same as practice and drilling of basic digital marketing and business skills.
Invest in building a
great digital marketing
team - as opposed to
a great attribution
model.
Conclusion
There are many parallels that can be drawn between war,
digital marketing and business in general. Humans haven’t
changed in 7,000 years - even if our technology has.
The best armies are disciplined, strategically aware, use the
latest technology and have great leadership.
Next Steps?
I want to expand this analysis to
define in more detail optimal digital
marketing team structures and
alternate ways of measuring
success.
ANY QUESTIONS?

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Attribution, competition and military tactics in digital marketing mc syd sep 2016

  • 1. Attribution, Competition and Military Tactics in Digital Marketing Scott Sunderland www.scottsunderland.net
  • 2. Is it possible to build an accurate Attribution model?
  • 3. I’ve looked around the literature Sethi Model (1983) - includes effectiveness of advertising Effectiveness of Advertising Factor Word of Mouth Factor
  • 4. Duopoly Extension Sorger (1989) i = brand mi(t) = market share ρi= ad effectiveness ui = the ad spending level of brand i that depends on both own and competitor’s shares (i.e., ui(m1, m2)) Notice the competitor spend and market share factors
  • 5. N-brand Oligopoly Markets Naik, Prasad, Sethi (2007) The main point here is that marketing awareness is explained by a combination of your actions, your competitors actions and random variation
  • 6. Attribution is massively in demand But as an industry ( and our academic friends agree) we know how complicated it is to assign credit to various marketing channels. I wanted to investigate this idea of competition
  • 7. Can lessons from military tactics be applied to digital marketing? Answer = Yes
  • 8. An overview of military strategy literature Two classic military strategists really dominate the literature: Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz. Most modern military doctrine is based on their ideas. In modern times we’ve had technological advancements and ‘new ideas’ from the likes of Donald Rumsfeld (more on that later)
  • 9. Sun Tzu ● Born 544 BC ● Evan Spiegel forced his staff to read “Art of War” after Mark Zuckerberg tried to buy Snapchat Mission or "the Way". Gain the respect and trust of your army (organisation). Also the importance of communication. Gather as much information as you can on yourself, your competitors and the environment you operate in. "Know yourself and Know your enemy and you will never lose" Choose when and where to engage, don’t have this chosen for you. <- first mover
  • 10. Carl von Clausewitz ● Born 1780 ● Wrote the famous “On War” ● Famous quote: “War is the continuation of politics by other means” WAR IS A FASCINATING TRINITY: Primordial violence / blind natural force; (irrational) Chance and probability (non- rational) Policy and reason. (rational) War cannot be quantified or reduced to mapwork, geometry, and graphs.
  • 11. Donald Rumsfeld ● Born 1932 ● Former US Secretary of Defence ● Advocated for the war in Iraq Well - let’s just watch the video shall we... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =GiPe1OiKQuk
  • 12. But there’s another... Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek came up with a fourth category, the unknown known. He criticised Rumsfeld saying “the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns"—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about.” Digital Marketing Industry - perhaps? Another description of these unknown knowns is: the things you think you knew, but in fact that you did not.
  • 13. Why is this important? Well if it’s not totally obvious - in war and life (and definitely digital attribution!) there are a whole host of unknown unknowns Point being, we are always going to have to accept a certain amount of (sometimes total) uncertainty when dealing with complicated systems and decisions. Hence we need to act accordingly
  • 14. Modern Military Issues / Concerns Micromanagement: Generals are now able to micro-manage engagements from the other side of the world. But they only see what camera sees. Old Fashioned Management: Military leaders are learning (re-learning) how to delegate properly. Keep it Simple: George C. Marshall - simple so every lieutenant understands Machine Learning: Real-Time Adversarial Intelligence and Decision Making systems
  • 16. Summary of what’s important Researching some of the famous military tacticians - this is what I found important in terms of Digital Marketing: 1. Get trust and respect from your team. 2. Know yourself and your enemies 3. Use Combined Arms 4. Good Team Structure/Communication 5. Decision Making
  • 17. TRUST 1. Get trust and respect from your team. a. Is everyone in your organisation facing the same way, for the right reasons? b. Sun Tzu says respect is gained by genuinely caring for your staff, but also being very disciplined and strict when you need to be, including on yourself.
  • 18. KNOW 1. Know yourself and your enemies a. Take the proper time to: b. Research your market c. Profile your audience i. Follow your best customers (eg Twitter). See what channels they are on. d. Profile your competitors e. Have a system in place to monitor these ongoing. f. Be diligent.
  • 19. COMBINED ARMS 1. Combined Arms a. Artillery, Infantry and cavalry all have their strengths and weaknesses. They work much better together. b. Therefore being on one marketing channel is borderline suicidal. c. “Guerrilla Marketing” says this should be at least 20 channels!
  • 20. TEAM STRUCTURE 1. Team Structure/Communication a. Everything needs to be integrated. b. Working in Silos = NO. c. PR especially, but all channels really - have to work extremely closely with all campaigns. d. If a small team keep the messaging more simple. Larger teams can be more complex
  • 21. DECISION MAKING 1. Decision Making a. Von Clausewitz said simple models do not work and war is far too complex to model this way. b. Instead always factor in random error to your judgements. c. Accept that you have emotional biases of your own - and that others do too. d. Be humble.
  • 22. A point on smaller v larger companies Throughout history armies much smaller than larger armies have prevailed. This was nearly always achieved with a combination of the below: 1. Leadership a. Xenophon leading 10,000 Greek Hoplites on a long march through Persia and back to Europe the whole time being pursued by a larger force 2.Geography a. 300 Spartans standing at the choke point of Thermopylae. 3. Technology a. Mongol compound bow. Note: Technological advantage only lasts until the technology becomes widely adopted.
  • 23. A point on smaller companies cont’d 4.Strategy/Tactics a. Alexander used a cavalry feint to the right and then cut back into the opposing center. Since the center is where the opposing king was, this caused surprise and chaos and cut off the head of the opposing force 5.Discipline a. The classic Roman legion would routinely beat larger barbarian forces by simply being disciplined. b. It is the same as practice and drilling of basic digital marketing and business skills.
  • 24. Invest in building a great digital marketing team - as opposed to a great attribution model.
  • 25. Conclusion There are many parallels that can be drawn between war, digital marketing and business in general. Humans haven’t changed in 7,000 years - even if our technology has. The best armies are disciplined, strategically aware, use the latest technology and have great leadership.
  • 26. Next Steps? I want to expand this analysis to define in more detail optimal digital marketing team structures and alternate ways of measuring success.

Editor's Notes

  1. Rumsfeld: There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
  2. The proliferation of communication, technology and unmanned drones have enabled commanders to micromanage conflict on the other side of the world. The problem is that they only see what the camera sees - usually its the stuff that you can’t see that is most important.
  3. One battalion commander in Iraq told how he had 12 stars’ worth of generals (a four-star general, two three-star lieutenant generals, and a two-star major general) tell him where to position his units during a battle. Micromanagement: The proliferation of communication, technology and unmanned drones have enabled commanders to micromanage conflict on the other side of the world. The problem is that they only see what the camera sees - usually its the stuff that you can’t see that is most important. Old Fashioned Management: Military leaders are learning (or need to learn) how to delegate properly. If generals are making the decisions for sargeants, who is making the general’s decisions? How are the sargeants learning? Keep it Simple: World War II’s General of the Army George C. Marshall chose to set the broad goals and agenda. He had smart staff officers write up details of the plan but ensured that everything remained simple enough that a lieutenant in the field could understand and implement everything. Machine Learning: Real-Time Adversarial Intelligence and Decision Making systems increasingly being used to assist commanders make decisions. Where systems have too much data that may overwhelem humans, eg number of incoming targets.
  4. One battalion commander in Iraq told how he had 12 stars’ worth of generals (a four-star general, two three-star lieutenant generals, and a two-star major general) tell him where to position his units during a battle.