The myth of the Marketing Jedi
Fans and non-fans of the epoch-defining space opus Star Wars will know that being a Jedi means being invested with powers to bend natural laws at will, to transmute across dimensions, to levitate, navigate, motivate, and even ameliorate - all by harnessing the strength of your mind and using ‘The Force’. It’s magical, and (spoiler alert) gets the good guys out of all sorts of scrapes.
Back on planet Earth, and in the decidedly non-galactic context of the travel industry, those with responsibility for marketing can find themselves expected to demonstrate a similar skillset on a regular basis. A marketing lead must levitate their brand above the risks to its sector, while the gravitational pull of tactical responses to short-term business imperatives constantly act as a counterweight. There’s pressure from the sales team for help to hit the targets set by the Board regardless of whether doing so aligns to the long-term brand vision, and the Board itself demands the brand be the next big thing - even while investing in anything but - and will “sacrifice the ‘test-learn-refine cycle’ at the altar of doing”, as one of the Llamas put it. Meanwhile, there’s a team of disparate talents to shepherd, optimise and keep focused.
It’s little wonder that someone who can make all that happen can seem like they’re a magician, or using a rarefied power.
But that belies the effort required to do so, and it trivialises the skill involved.
Llama has been created because we know that marketing leads are human (for now…more on that later…). They can make amazing things happen because they have to. But doing so can be a stressful, thankless and lonely experience - factors that contribute to the high turnover of marketing talent in the travel industry. We’ve talked to five senior marketeers and heard first hand how and when they’re expected to use The Force to deliver growth at pace despite limited resource and constrained budgets, a fragmenting media landscape, opaque data, ignorance of their customers’ needs, and creative-decision-making-by-committee.
The Llama herd is made up of some of the foremost talents in travel marketing. Their insights, firsthand experience and expertise can help senior marketeers to sharpen their powers in the face of those challenges, enabling them to negotiate the competing demands on their attention and deliver brand magic on an ongoing basis…not just when the Dark Side comes calling.
