Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

I planned to write an article on offshore outsourcing of marketing back when offshoring was such a big political issue, and had to stop as I couldn't find examples where people had actually offshore outsourced marketing. Seems offshoring isn't a problem in marketing right now.

But outsourcing of marketing functions does happen, particularly the more tactical activities (like market research, marcom, PR, etc.). Go to any marketing association meeting and you will meet lots of people/companies looking to sell their services. But, I don't know of any cases where the more strategic work (like marketing management and brand management) is outsourced, so I don't know of cases where the whole marketing function is outsourced.

I've often thought that I wouldn't want any client to outsource everything to me because I would become too obsessed with that client's problems to be an objective, analytical, creative resource. In a sense, that would kill the Golden Goose, and become more like my own client.

It's the same reaction I have when a client wants to pay me in equity. A little equity "kicker" sounds like a neat incentive, but when my livelihood becomes tied to performance on a project, I worry that I won't be as objective and as eager to take prudent risks.

About 15 years ago I started commodity trading. I became a student of various strategies, and I was earning 20% per month for 5, 6, or 7 months. Not bad! But I realized that I was able to do that because there wasn't enough money involved to really destroy me (or make a living at it). As soon as I considered trading 10 or 20 contracts instead of 1 or 2 at a time, the size of the risk seemed overwhelming, and I wasn't able to scale up and still sleep at night. End of my commodity trading career. (I co-authored a book on it, though, and sold a course on how to trade for $300 a copy!)

Anyway, the point is that consultants are much better served being consultants than trying to become pseudo-clients. I'd worry if a client wanted to oursource their entire marketing function ... because it suggests they don't understand the central function of marketing in their business, and because it virtually ensures that the consultant (or outsource company) will become part of the problem instead of the solution.

My reaction to this interesting idea.