Best Practice
The Wiggly Woo
Dawn Farrow, founder of
Boom ENTS, on her five
steps to create an effective
marketing campaign, with
the help of a ‘Wiggly Woo’
mentality
H
“We could save time
by implementing
the ‘it worked on
this other similar
event’ strategy,
but this would be
cheating our clients”
ave you ever done the Wiggly Woo? If not,
why not?
I love marketing. In my opinion it is the one
place where creative thoughts meet strategic
thinking. That said, when I set off in my first
marketing assistant role some 18 years ago, I did
have a glossier outlook on what marketing was.
In answer to the interview question “Why do you
want to work in marketing?”, I said: “I want to
input on the design of posters and be creative.”
I got the job and promptly spent the next two
years reporting on sales and budget figures with
the occasional opportunity to give my opinion on
the colour or position of a logo – #trainingforlife.
Fast forward to 2019, and marketing is certainly
not about a single poster design which you’ll get to
plaster on Out of Home sites with no requirement
to report on ROI.
When it comes to campaign planning I
understand that as a marketing agency owner we
could save time and resource by implementing the
‘it worked on this other similar event, so let’s use
the same template, copy the ideas and put a new
title on the page’ strategy, but the problem is that
not only would this be cheating our clients but we
would also miss a major step in the process…The
Wiggly Woo!
So, what is the Wiggly Woo?
It’s a frame of mind that allows you to
acknowledge bits of a campaign that have worked
before and then to ‘wiggle’ your way through what
else you could do, question yourself and ‘woo’
your campaign into Cage Warrior status.
So how can you implement the Wiggly Woo?
1. Whack it all in. Start your campaign plan and
add in all the ideas you believe you want. Try
not to moderate yourself. Pull in ideas from
previous campaigns on other events.
2. Engage Wiggly Woo. Step away from your work
for a while. Read, research, be inspired by how
other people have created campaigns – be bold
and, if possible, ask other people to input to
your work. (Don’t go over budget).
3. Do it. Implementation and delivery are as
crucial as planning. Do what you say you’re
going to do and ensure that you have the right
tools in place to record and analyse the results.
You’ll need this for planning the next campaign.
4. Deal with: ‘But I’m always right’. Be comfortable
not knowing all of the answers. Marketing
and advertising constantly change, that’s just
reality. As long as you’ve not made a decision
because ‘it worked before’ you’ll be fine.
5. Be primed and ready. It’s always good to hold
some budget and ideas back. Part of being a
professional Wiggly Woo-er is knowing that you
will always have tickets to sell.
Naturally your Wiggly Woo will be different
to the next persons. Mine is kind of loud and
unsubtle (imagine a baby giraffe attempting the
100m hurdles). You might prefer the Taylor Swift
‘shake it off, shake it off’ approach but ultimately
the challenge is the same.
Don’t presume that just because it worked
before, it will work again. Challenge yourself and
those around you to be inquisitive and question
your ideas. Marketing is creative, not necessarily
because of the colour of the poster but because
it allows you to freely consider how to generate
engagement and sales, to evaluate and then try
again.
Got to dash…I need to get my Wiggly Woo on!
March — 61