Z.E.R.O.: Zero Paid Media as the New Marketing Model

SECTIONIII

The Z.E.R.O. Action Plan

The question Maarten gets the most from the community of global marketers who are members of the World Federation of Advertisers, whom he works with daily, is “I understand I need to do something, but what should I do?” In this book, and especially in these last chapters, we have tried to make that what tangible.

Joseph began his career on the brand side and then transitioned into and out of the agency quagmire, whereas Maarten worked on the agency side before moving over to the dark side. From our combined tenures on both agency and brand marketer sides, we've picked up enough best and worst practices to triangulate a list of 10 action categories, designed to bring Z.E.R.O. to life, both holistically (zero paid media as the new marketing model) and individually (zealots, entrepreneurship, retention, owned assets).

To set up the 10-point action plan, we'll introduce one more acronym (can't promise it's the last one, but it is meaningful): C.O.S.T. (cultural, organizational, strategic, and tactical).

C.O.S.T. is a simplified (almost to a fault) change management continuum that fairly clearly offers insight into corporate growth and acceptance as it relates to marketing change. It was introduced by Joseph to explain digital adoption and has proved relevant for everything that has followed thereafter: social, mobile, and even customer service and experience.

C.O.S.T. essentially describes the phases or stages of a company's approach to various new, ...