By Steve Boehler with special guest Dan White
If you are a marketer and you don’t know who Dan White is, you probably know his visuals.
Dan White is a business innovator that expresses important, complex marketing theories in simple to digest, beautiful graphics. His ideas, frameworks and visualizations have influenced generations of marketing and insights professionals and are built into many of the world’s leading brand measurement, media evaluation and copy-testing systems.
Dan’s career includes a decade as a marketing analyst, another as a brand and communications consultant and a third as a Chief Marketing Officer. His background includes key roles at Kantar and Millward Brown. Dan splits his time between client consultancy, training, platform speaking, illustration and writing. He is the author of four terrific books (more on that later!).
We caught up with Dan recently and here’s what we heard.
Let’s start with an easy one: how did you develop a passion for using imaginative visuals to bring marketing concepts to life?
It started when I first had people reporting into me, at Millward Brown, in the early ‘90s. Part of the job was to educate the next generation of marketing analysts/researchers. I found that words only worked so far… sometimes a diagram or illustration was much more effective. My passion for using visuals to explain complex ideas grew from there.
What did you learn during your couple of decades at Millward Brown & Kantar that influences your current work?
Pretty much everything! Millward Brown was full of highly intelligent, experienced marketing and market research experts keen to share their knowledge and passion for the subject. I learned something new every day either from colleagues or the super-smart clients.
What are your favorite couple of visuals? Which ones should CMOs hang on their office walls or have tattooed on their bodies? Why?
That’s so hard! It’s like deciding which of your children you love the most (both equally, by the way). The Marketing Mix Eye and the Brand Pinanta are hugely popular but I’m most proud of my tribute to Escher that shows how hard it is to grab people’s attention.
What are a couple topics that you think marketers aren’t spending enough time on today?
Despite all the evidence of the benefits of building ‘Distinctive Brand Assets’ over time, many (most?) brand owners seem oblivious to the commercial value this creates. If I were to launch a brand now, I’d start by defining 4-5 audio and visual assets that I’d feature across marketing touchpoints to create a clear brand identity in the minds of my target consumers. In fact, I did this when I launched my personal brand in 2020. I have my own distinct colour scheme and hand-drawn, cartoonish visual style that I use religiously. I also have my own sonic identity I use for my video content. I think/hope these assets have helped me build my brand.
If you were a CMO today, what would you do differently?
I’d think bigger. I’d brainstorm how to make my brand come to mind instantly for a wide range of buying contexts. Professor Byron Sharp, author of the seminal book ‘How Brands Grow’ refers to these as category entry points. In order to grow, your brand needs to spring to mind for more people across more category entry points. Or it could increase it’s ‘Physical Availability’ (i.e. make it available and visible whenever people buy the category.) Marketing sounds so simple when you put it like this! (It’s not).
Where do you see the most innovation in marketing coming from these days: agencies, marketers, academia, consultants, somewhere else? Why is that?
Tricky question. Probably from media agencies. They are in charge of the whole show these days. Creative agencies used to be in charge but when media became so technical and confusing, the media agencies gained the upper hand. They leveraged technology to deliver increasingly effective media strategies that optimised immediate sales returns. The value of brand building for the long-term has been lost to some extent. But it’s about to make a comeback! Watch out for dentsu’s ‘The Great Brand Reset’!
You started your own shop 4 years ago. If you were to do it again, what would you do differently?
I might pay for advice from experts that know how to help a ‘one-man-band’ become more successful quickly. There again, it was quite nice having a quiet year or two while I built awareness!
Knowing what you know today, what advice would you give to your 30 year old self?
Please try to relax and ‘smell the coffee’ more often. And the roses. Life flies by so you need to relish the experience in the moment. Also, buy more shares in Tesla and sell them in 2021.
Dan White is a business innovator. His ideas, frameworks and visualizations have influenced generations of marketing and insights professionals and are built into many of the world’s leading brand measurement, media evaluation and copy-testing systems. Dan’s career includes a decade as a marketing analyst, another as a brand and communications consultant and a third as a Chief Marketing Officer. Dan splits his time between client consultancy, training, platform speaking, illustration and writing. He is the author of ‘The Smart Marketing Book’, ‘The Soft Skills Book’, ‘The Smart Branding Book’ and ‘The Smart Advertising Book’ which is due out in March 2024.
Steve Boehler, founder, and partner at Mercer Island Group has led consulting teams on behalf of clients as diverse as Zillow Group, Microsoft, UScellular, Nintendo, Ulta Beauty, Stop & Shop, Qualcomm, Brooks Running, and numerous others. He founded MIG after serving as a division president in a Fortune 100 when he was only 32. Earlier in his career, Steve Boehler cut his teeth with a decade in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble, leading brands like Tide, Pringles, and Jif.
