Why Your Marketing Isn't Working (And It's Not Marketing's Fault)
Most marketing spend fails not because campaigns are poorly executed, but because marketing is being asked to compensate for a business that lacks genuinely unique value—the real driver of demand, pricing power, and customer loyalty. Drawing on examples like Costco, Ryanair, and Octopus Energy, this piece argues that real growth comes from strategy: identifying a form of value only you can deliver, building the operational "delivery" mechanism that produces it, and only then using marketing to communicate that truth compellingly. It introduces a three-layer framework—Strategy, Delivery, and Brand/Marketing—for diagnosing why growth stalls and why throwing more budget at branding often just repaints a crumbling foundation. The core message: strategy is an alternative to effort, and fixing the top of the hierarchy makes everything downstream easier and cheaper.