Let’s face it. Marketing plans are getting old-fashioned and useless. Almost anything that could be considered as a priority for marketing just a few years back is now history.

Let’s take a look at something that happened at NHL last weekend.

Buffalo Sabres were playing Pittsburgh Penguins – just an ordinary hockey game. The teams are engaging with their fans, including Buffalo had coach Dan Bylsma. He decides to pass a puck to an eager fan and make one little boy very happy. For some reason an adult gentleman decides to grab the puck before the boy gets it, leaving the boy empty-handed.

This all is caught on camera, and someone gets an clever idea to solve the embarrassing situation.
First, the cameras are pointed at the boy and Dan Bylsma. One of the stewards goes to the head coach, get another puck, and gives it to the boy. Next the Penguins mascot comes to the boy, giving him a jersey and a big hug. Finally, the boy gets to do some highfives with the team.

This is what marketing is all about today – running an organization that is enabled to act whenever there is need for that. It’s about a clear understanding of what is important and when is the right time to react. It’s about having a common goal and doing the little things that will take the team towards the goal.

This would not have happened with the old style marketing organization, that was trying to optimize the marketing and sales to achieve “most-for-the-buck” target.

Doing what was done in this game can’t be planned. Old style marketing is slow to react and it can’t even see the results of this act because it’s not a contribution to the marketing plan. Oh, and this would not been done by the marketing organization.

What was then reached with this “stunt”? A huge increase with positive brand engagement. Just by looking at comments on this video shows how much compassion was generated for the organizers. Oh, and if you want numbers… 8 million views on Facebook only. Worth something, right?

Three key things for making this happen in your organization:

1. Make sure everyone understand that business is achieved by making people to love us and our products.
2. Make sure everyone understand who we are and what it means in practice.
3. Enable people to work towards the business goal, give them a permission to do what they think should be done and reward the successes.

Good luck!