This past week is a hard one for marketers.

Lots of hours and time go into getting everything ready for a huge sales weekend.

I know you worked hard leading up to the weekend and during it.

I see you and salute you!

As we get numbers back and start to finalize reports, I know there were some brands winning big, others that struggled, or some closing shop because they didn’t hit targets.

I was very conservative in my estimates for consumer spending.

I thought it would be lower than last year - it wasn’t.

And some brands made huge YoY growth with great efficiency while others were flat or even below last year.

The winners all had this one thing in common.

Building demand all year long through creative and other big bets.

Play with a Winning Mindset

The end of college football season is coming, and my Washington Huskies here in Seattle are ranked 4th in the country.

Last week they almost lost a game they should easily have won.

Why?

They played scared.

Instead of trying to win the game, they played as if they were trying not to lose the game.

There is a difference in how you take action with those two mindsets.

When you play to win the game, you take risks, and you go after big plays.

When you play to not lose the game, you get conservative with your actions and try to make mistakes.

But by trying to minimize mistakes, you make mistakes because you aren’t playing the game the way you did when you were winning - taking risks.

The same is true for Q4 and marketing.

The brands that won are the ones that invest in building demand all year long, not just a week or two leading up to BFCM.

I think many people have been worried about the consumer spending decreasing, myself included, and so brands were afraid of taking bets.

Part of that is attribution.

So many people obsess about the 1-day click attribution of an ad that they forget the effects of marketing can have over people over a long period of time.

So we optimize for the short-term versus thinking about the long-term.

Brands that won this year in BFCM did interesting campaigns and spent money consistently on ads.

They took risks and tried things that didn’t scale or give them direct 1-day click attribution.

How can You Win Next Year?

Start investing in your creative and campaigns today.

You have to take risks and play offense starting now.

2024 is your year that you invest in creative and take risks.

If you ask any brand that won big this year, they will all say it is because they invested in building ads, scaling spend, and pushing campaigns throughout the year.

Of course there is seasonality and dips throughout the year, but your mentality shouldn’t shrink to trying to not lose the game.

Keep your marketing mindset to winning games by taking those risks and investing in creative.investing in creative.