When the Games Stopped: March 11, 2020

In late 2019 and early 2020 I was working on a project promoting biometric entry at sports facilities and concert venues…until a teeny little worldwide pandemic shut down all the sport and concert venues.

Some of you may remember that a pivotal day during that period was March 11, 2020. Among many many other things, this was the day on which basketball fans awaited the start of a game.

“8 p.m. [ET; 7 p.m. local time]: In Oklahoma City, it was just another game day for Nerlens Noel and his Thunder teammates, who were warming up to play the visiting Utah Jazz.”

The day soon became abnormal after a meeting between NBA officials and the two coaches. Unbeknownst to the crowd, the officials and coaches were discussing a medical diagnosis of Rudy Gobert. (That’s another story.)

“8:31 p.m. [ET]: Teams were sent back to their locker rooms but the crowd at Chesapeake Energy Arena weren’t informed of the cancellation immediately. Instead, recording artist Frankie J, the intended halftime entertainment, put on his show, while officials decided how to break the news.”

Eight minutes later, the crowd was instructed to leave the arena.

Twenty minutes after that, the NBA suspended all games.

Imagen 4.

A little over a month later, on April 19, millions of people were huddled in their homes, glued to the opening episode of a TV series called The Last Dance…the only basketball any of us were going to get for a while. And of course, these games were on decades-long tape delay, and we already knew the outcome. (The Chicago Bulls won.)

And that was our basketball…until the suspended season resumed on July 30 under very bizarre circumstances.

Anyway, all of that was a very long time ago.

Imagen 4.

Games and concerts have been back in business since 2021, and identity verification and authentication of venue visitors with biometrics and other factors is becoming more popular every year.

Technology Product Marketing Expert (2509)

Is fear of your competitors stealing your prospects keeping you up at night?

You’re a tech marketing leader, and you know the pressure is on. Every day you’re not getting your products in front of the right prospects, a competitor is.

I’m John E. Bredehoft of Bredemarket, the technology product marketing expert. For over 30 years, I’ve helped over 20 B2B and B2G companies and consulting clients turn that fear into results with powerful product marketing and over 22 types of external and internal content.

Let’s talk about how my expertise in identity, biometrics, AI, and other technologies can give you the advantage you need to win.

Book a free meeting now before your competitors do: https://calendly.com/bredemarket/content/

And if you’d like details about my most recent client go-to-market project, watch the video below.

Recent go-to-market project.

(Picture generated by Google Gemini Imagen 4)

Strategy is not Tactics

I’ve said that strategy is one of four essential elements of product marketing. But you have to know what strategy is…and what it is not.

To illustrate the difference between strategy and tactics, it helps to differentiate between abstract, long term goals and concrete, short term goals.

If your goal is to better the world, that’s a strategy.

If your goal is to excel in a particular industry, that’s a strategy.

Although strategies can change. Those who know of Nokia as a telecommunications company, and those who remember Nokia as a phone supplier, are not old enough to remember Nokia’s beginnings as a pulp mill in 1865.

If your goal is to secure business from a specific prospect, that’s a tactic. Or it should be.

Fleming Companies secured a 10-year contract in 2001 as the main supplier of groceries to Kmart, accounting for 20% of Fleming’s revenue. Kmart cancelled that contract when it declared bankruptcy a year later. Fleming filed a $1.4 billion claim in Kmart’s bankruptcy case…but only got $385 million. Fleming itself ended up in bankruptcy court in 2003.

But Fleming’s strategy was to excel at food wholesaling through acquisition and innovation.

It’s just that one tactical blunder upended that strategy.

Whether Bredemarket pivots from biometric content to resume writing (not likely), I am presently equipped to address both your strategic and tactical product marketing needs. If I can help you, talk to me at https://bredemarket.com/mark/.

How “Humans in the Loop” Kills Companies

What happens when you and all your competitors adopt a “humans in the loop” methodology for your marketing and your product marketing?

Quotes from Robert Rose, Content Marketing Institute.

“Generative AI promised to relieve humans of the tedious, mechanical work — freeing them to be more strategic, more creative, more human.

“The reality? We’ve wrapped our rationalizations around this new concept called “humans in the loop.”

“This often means marketers are demoted to glorified spellcheckers and fact-checkers for machine output. Not creators. Not strategists. Just custodians of content they never had a hand in shaping.

Perhaps Rose’s thoughts are wishful thinking on the part of carbon-based marketers.

But if the “humans in the loop” thought persists…isn’t everyone using the same undifferentiated loop? When everyone yells “we use AI,” no one is differentiated. And no, it makes no difference with AI flavor of the week you’re using, since they all train on data. Human data.

And if the humans at all the companies are imprisoned by their identical loops…who has the competitive advantage? No one.

Except for those that use humans…especially humans who have been around for a while and remember this. If you don’t have a full five minutes, skip right to the three-minute mark.