Episode 159 / Miguel Magalhães / P&G / Brand Manager, Tampax UK & Ireland
Why Being Market Oriented Is Not As Easy As It May Seem
Miguel Magalhães is the Brand Manager for Tampax UK & Ireland at Procter and Gamble, as well as a lecturer in marketing management with a passion for sharing marketing research and insights with students. This means he has a unique perspective on marketing, as both a practitioner and a teacher of it. His Shiny New Object is market orientation – the fact of not just considering your target consumer when preparing your marketing strategy, but actually understanding and focusing on all the market variables.
Starting his career as a marketing consultant, Miguel has always had a passion for marketing, brand and strategy. Sharing his research with students complements his practice of marketing and helps him remember to reflect and consider his own career path. In fact, this is one of Miguel’s top tips to students and experienced marketers alike: we all spend time considering the future of brands and analysing their performance, but do we do the same for our own careers and personal paths?
Reflecting on what makes good marketing, Miguel’s Shiny New Object is market orientation. Although this isn’t a new concept, it refers to something that Miguel thinks not a lot of marketers do: consider their space in the market as a whole and all the variables that impact their performance.
Most marketers focus on consumer data and insights, which is indeed a good first step. However, market orientation is about much more – it even includes a reflection into what marketing is and its ultimate goal.
How do you start to be market oriented? First, simply considering it and asking the right question is key. Then, Miguel advises brands to move to strategising, basing it on what you can offer to your consumers, that your competitors cannot. The next step is to apply this strategy to tactics and eventually execute it.
Find out more about how to become market oriented and listen to Miguel’s top tips and advice for succeeding in the industry, in the full episode here.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Tom Ollerton 0:00
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Hello, and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative. And this is a weekly podcast where I have the pleasure and the privilege of interviewing our industry's leaders about their vision for the future of the business. This week is no different. I'm on a call with Miguel Magalhaes, who is brand manager, Tampax, UK and Ireland at P&G. Miguel, for anyone who doesn't know who you are what you do, can you just give us a bit of background?
Miguel Magalhaes 1:23
Hi Tom, thanks for having me. Sure. So my name as you said, and very well, is Miguel Magalhaes, I'm Portuguese. I was born in Portugal, I started my career as a consultant in marketing. And also for the past five, six years, that's what I've been studying. So I'm the brand manager of Tampax in UK and Ireland at P&G. And apart from that, I'm also a lecturer in marketing management. So a big part of my passion and be part of what I do is in marketing brand and strategy.
Tom Ollerton 1:57
Fantastic. We've never had a lecturer on the podcast before, tell me a bit about that.
Miguel Magalhaes 2:02
Yeah, I'll actually talk a bit about this maybe later when we talk about the shiny new object. But yeah, so my passion was always to be a lecturer and researcher in marketing. I mean, I love working in marketing, as a practitioner in companies, whether it is a small, medium or large company. But when I get in the class, and I just talked about marketing and debate with people and a lot of them my age, it's it's something else like being paid to talk about marketing, to discuss marketing strategy, brand, with other people that love the field as well is very interesting. And then the research part as well, which I absolutely love being able to actually give knowledge, to actually add knowledge to to literature and to reveal the literature as it is it's, for me, it's the best thing to do in marketing. And even if I didn't work in marketing, I'm 100% sure I would do the same thing with a different field.
Tom Ollerton 3:03
So you work with students? And what advice do you give them more? What's your best bit of student advice you give to help people succeed in the industry?
Miguel Magalhaes 3:12
Yeah, so this is, this is actually a close one to me. And this is not just because I got in this industry as a professional, somewhat recently, but also because I follow the development of a lot of students and young professionals. And I would say that, from the past three or four years, when I started following the development of a lot of these professionals, a lot of these students, if I could sum up the main learning that I could give other students, young students, young professionals that get into this industry is that especially in this industry, especially in marketing, you have to learn by doing. That's the main thing. And there's actually a paradox that we have nowadays, which is like, okay, but if I want to learn it, I need to practice it. And if I want to practice it, I need to learn it. Well, this this is a paradox that I think it's not real when you actually shift your focus from common internships or entry level models in companies. And you shift your attention to stuff like junior enterprises that I was part of, for the past three or four years, and initiatives like Isaac, for example, and the derivatives from there. So either some either startups for example, they're actually starting so you can do pro bono work, or you can actually create your own opportunities and you could start as small as like a blog or wherever it is focusing on the field that you want to train, and then you can go from there. So just shifting this, this focus from the conventional models of starting to do marketing, to creating your own opportunities, or joining these initiatives that are really focused on students and young people, then you you just start and by the end of college, you'll have two, three years of experience. And that was my case, and it proved to be very helpful.
Tom Ollerton 5:18
That's great advice. And so what in your career so far, would you say? Is your top marketing tip? What's that golden bit of advice you find yourself sharing on a regular basis?
Miguel Magalhaes 5:29
Well, I would say this is more of a heads up rather than than a tip, we have a saying in Portugal that roughly is translated to "blacksmith's house, wooden skewer," and this is kind of something like I think you guys say in the UK, which is like "the shoemaker's son always goes barefoot." Now, what I mean with this applied to marketing applied to what would be a marketing tip or a heads up into advertising as well, is that probably and hopefully, people in the last quarter of 2021, they were planning their businesses, their brand strategy for for this year for this fiscal year. And what I see from a lot of the people that have followed other people, and a lot of them are more, or even my friends is that they did their strategy for their brands for the for their companies, but they really lack the at least the understanding of how important it is for you to take a step back and think about yourself as well. That's what I mean, with the shoemaker's son and how he goes barefoot. We work in marketing, we work in strategy, we work with thinking things for the future, at least the immediate future. And many times we lack that kind of thinking for ourselves. And I see how important it is with people that actually do and especially after the two years that we've had. Just looking back and just taking a step back thinking of what you've accomplished this far, if this is actually what you want to do, if you're in the right job, the right industry, and a lot of people as you probably know, a lot of people even start in a blank page. And I think that's the result of a lot of people thinking, Am I in the right place? Am I doing what I like? Does it make sense for the kind of feature that I want to have? So for my fellow marketing and advertising colleagues, I'll probably say that apart from doing it just for brands, do it for yourself as well.
Tom Ollerton 7:31
Once again, once again, great advice, but very hard to do. It's so much easier to be objective about a brand or a product. And it's I find it's very difficult to be honest. And look after your own brand can be very cringy. And difficult. I think it's the the challenge there. But anyway, it's a different different different episode for sure.
Miguel Magalhaes 7:49
Yeah, I would even say that I mean, studying strategy. I mean, the most important thing is knowing your, your consumer, right? And it almost comes to a philosophical question where people have to really understand what Who am I what do I want? And probably some of these people actually understand their consumers better than they understand themselves. So it's definitely a difficult one.
Tom Ollerton 8:13
Yeah, very true.
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So we're going to move on now to your shiny new object. And it was a new one to me, certainly in name. And I'm really interested to to learn more about market orientation. So what is market orientation? I've got I think I know what it is. But can you just describe to someone who's got no idea?
Miguel Magalhaes 9:18
What I absolutely love talking about this, like we said, I mean, in terms of lecturing and researching, this is what I've been focusing on for the past two, two years. And it's not a new thing. So if if we really nailed down what market orientation is, you'll think, okay, that makes sense. I know what it is, it is obvious. And just the fact of being obvious is something that really makes me fall in love with it. Because basically what I did for the past two years was I really tried to understand how marketing is practiced in organizations both in terms of functions, structure, how it's structured in the organization's, but also what the marketing leaders think that the role of marketing is in their enterprise. And basically right now, I mean, if you go through the literature, or if you talk with a lot of people, which is what I did, I interviewed about 30 marketing leaders. And there's a lot of things that people talk about, like lead generation, for example, which is a very technical thing, it's not necessarily the role of marketing, or you go to a more broad sense of what marketing is where people say, for example, marketing is creating value. But what I always tried to do, and obviously, anyone working in lecturing or researching, what I always try to do is to really understand is this actually the truth? Like, because when you say, creating value, which is what a lot of marketing professionals, academics, say, if we were talking with people, like engineers, they would say, Okay, I mean, you create value, but I create more value than you do by creating products by innovating by whatever it is. So we get in this discussion, where it's not up to who's right or who's wrong, it's up to who has the best argument. And it's also everyone in the enterprise, everyone in an organization, they add value, they want to add value. So for us to think that this is the marketing thing, it's in the very least, it's selfish. So basically, what I've been trying to understand is, okay, if I pull the string of value creation, then I get to associate a value creation, for example, which is, which has to do with marketing, advertising, people creating brands, for example, in creating more value for something that already had adds value. But if I keep pulling that string of creating value as the role of marketing, there's a lot of things that don't make sense with it. So what I've been trying to do is I've been trying to pull a different string, and the one that I pulled was marketing orientation, market orientation. So what market orientation is, it is the degree to which enterprises which organizations use and or generate insights from their customers, their consumers from their market, essentially? And to which level they then use that for the strategy? And, again, probably, this seems something a bit simple. Okay, so basically, it's getting insights from the market and then using them to create my strategy. Well, there's a lot of things here. So, for example, a lot of what I saw when I interviewed people was that a lot of people are extremely focused on their consumer, which makes sense, but a lot of them don't even do. They don't even analyze their competitors, for example, they don't really understand how their market works, they maybe understand how the consumer works. And yes, the consumer is at the center of everything. But when we actually analyze what market is, there's a lot of other variables to it. And these companies were missing those variables. Now, what is marketing? What should marketing do, then? What is the role of marketing organizations? Well, there are markets, market marketing in organizations, in my mind, is to make companies market oriented, helping them think and understand the consumer, but not just that, the market overall. And it's not like an on off switch, where you're either a market oriented person or a market oriented organization, it's a spectrum, right? You can be either very low in market orientation, or very high.
And for me, this really seems like the best string to pull when we talk about the role of marketing in organizations, because then you have a very specific role, you have to think the business from the outside to the inside, from the market to your company. And now you can fit your model your company, your value proposal, wherever it is, in your marketing in your market. Sorry, considering all the other variables there are including your consumers, both the ones that you have, and the ones that are potential consumers. In my mind, this is what marketing should do. It's what marketing actually does. Because in a lot of interviews, people tell me things that I would be like, Okay, that is market orientation is not necessarily a very good market orientation, but it's market orientation. And again, this is a topic that it's in the literature, not a lot, but it's in the literature. There's a huge gap between people. Well, practitioners really want to know more about it, but then researchers don't really offer a lot of information about it. And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to close that gap by really understanding what market orientation is, how you can apply it, how you can improve the way that you apply it, and, and well, a lot of other things associated with it. As I told you, if I start talking about this, I just can can share but I would just start it by saying that in the in a very extreme thing, what I'm trying to do, and again, very extreme, and that obviously, there's a lot of work into I get that. But it's actually getting into the philosophical part of marketing, where you actually mess with the definition, which in my mind is that marketing is a market oriented, social economic discipline. And there's a lot of things that we could debate here, why is it a discipline? Why is it not a science or art? Why is it socio economic? Why is it market oriented, which is kind of what we'll discuss now. So that is, in the, in the very extreme what I want to try to do, kind of show how things are being done kind of give clarity, not necessarily bring a new piece of the puzzle, but just trying to help people understand the puzzle overall.
Tom Ollerton 15:54
So I get the theory, how's it work in practice? So for example, someone listens to this podcast, and they think, ah, that's what I should be doing all along. I need to start doing it tomorrow. What are the first three things that someone, a brand, who's not currently market oriented should do first thing tomorrow?
Miguel Magalhaes 16:11
Well, actually, when one thing is that I'm there having tried to understand is, what are the steps? Actually, your question to me was, what are the steps for you to be market oriented? And first of all, the thing is, if people think, oh, I need to start doing this tomorrow, first of all, you're already being market oriented. Maybe you're just being very market oriented. So the first thing that you should do is just analyze just seen your company in yourself as well. What kind of practices are you making? Are you really market oriented? So are you analyzing your competitors? Do you understand how your market works in the sense of a lot of companies don't even know their market share? And sometimes when we're in big companies, like Procter and Gamble, we get used to, yeah, so my market share is x. A lot of companies, I would say, 90 plus percent, because unfortunately, 99% of companies are micro enterprises. So definitely more than 90% of companies don't even know what their market share is. And this is that's an essential variable of understanding your market, which is where do I stand in this market? What kind of market share should I go after? So there's a lot of questions here. So the first stage would definitely be analyze. The second thing would be strategizing. So, okay, if you have the data, if you have the understanding, then the fine make sure that your strategy is based on what you can offer to your to your consumers. But something that your competitors cannot offer, at least as well as you do. And is something that again, and people could be, people would be surprised by some of some of these things, which is, a lot of companies really don't even analyze their competitors. So then you will see very close value propositions where the consumer would be like, I don't know which company to choose, I don't know which brands to choose. So then the choice would be the price or convenience. Say, I would say strategizing in, like, build your strategy around all the variables of your market, not just your consumer, otherwise, you're being myopic, right? In the in the 1960s. Here a lot, Theodore Levitt, talk to us about marketing myopia. And nowadays, it seems like we're so focused on consumer, which we should, but we just neglecting other stuff. So just strategize. And the third thing is apply that to tactics, because you could have a really good strategy, but you're not able to turn that into tactics, and then finally execute it. And that's a very tough one. It's definitely something that we cannot like, figure out in the podcast, but those would be the three stages, analyze, strategize, and then apply those things. The line is that you have to understand that you have to tactics.
Tom Ollerton 18:57
And is there a framework for doing the analysis? Do you like have a checklist? Market share is one thing, but in terms of looking at competitors. So say Brian has 10 competitors? Is it like a tick list? Is it like a rate or a range? How frequently they advertise, like watching a media spend is likely to be how do you? How do you do that in a thorough way?
Miguel Magalhaes 19:24
Well, then the long, the long way to do it is you can wait for me to tell you what I believe are the main things because I'm studying that I'm trying to see what the best ways are. But there's already a lot of information out there. Not necessarily and I just don't want to promote those things. Because I'm not 100% Sure, right. I want to research it, I want to understand it. But then some of the things like if you want in terms of literature, there's already articles where you can search for how to be market oriented, and you're out to do market orientation. There's already a few articles on that there, they have like 10-15 years, but still extremely good. And a lot of the literature that I see is very old as well. But it's still in terms of the theory of it and the practicality of it, it's still very recent, very modern, so definitely should see that. And then, like, there, there are already out there, people that talk about it, not exactly to the extent that I would like to talk about in the future, but they talk about market orientation, in everything related to it, like Mark Ritson, for example, he is one of the people that really is making people, at least being aware of market orientation. But then the way that a lot of people see it is very limited. There's a whole world of market orientation out there. That's what I that's what I'm exploring, that's probably what a lot of other people want to explore now. And so all these questions of how can I be more market oriented? What are the key points, you can either search for this literature, you can research about some of Mark Ritson's suggestions for your companies for your brands. But then it's something that it's so recent, recent in terms of really understanding it that I would say that, well, just only in a few months and a few years, we'll actually know to really properly do it. But yeah, just out there, there's probably already some stuff that you can see.
Tom Ollerton 21:31
Brilliant, so in essence, just Google it man, work it out yourself.
Miguel Magalhaes 21:35
Exactly. Exactly.
Tom Ollerton 21:37
Also, very good. Good advice, Miguel, thank you so much, man, that was big. I learned a lot from that. And it's really solid advice there. And there's real passion in the way you talk about marketing. And it's really refreshing. So I appreciate that. I can guarantee there will be some people that want to speak to you off the back of this podcast about to learn more about market orientation, how would you like them to get in touch with you and what makes a good outreach message to you?
Miguel Magalhaes 22:02
Sure, I mean, if you're someone that is already researching market orientation, I would love to talk to you we can talk about some of the research that I've been doing as well, we can maybe gather the data that we have, we can talk about it, definitely if you're someone that is not researching it, or just wants to know a bit more about it, definitely contact me as well. So the best way that you can do it is probably via LinkedIn. Just try and write my name and my surname there. And then you'll get to my profile and just connect, connect with me send me a message, and then we can go from there. So LinkedIn would be the best option.
Tom Ollerton 22:38
Fantastic. Miguel, have a lovely evening. Thanks so much for your time.
Miguel Magalhaes 22:41
Thank you so much Tom, have a lovely evening. Thanks.
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