CLAUDIO RANIERI, PERFORMANCE MARKETING, AND TODAY'S MARKET REALITY

The football world was shocked when last week, Claudio Ranieri, the man who wrote the most romantic football story of the century, when he led English Football Lilliputians, Leicester City, to win perhaps the most glamorous cup in Europe, (second of course to the UEFA Champions League Cup), the English Premier League Cup, was fired as coach of Leicester City FC.

An unassuming, always smiling, very friendly and team motivator extraordinaire, humble coach who had never won any major or significant European Club honours in his 27 years of club coaching, he was nicknamed “The Tinkerman” by the English press because he loved to shuffle and “tinker” with his team’s squad, tactics, and formations, over-rotating them throughout the season.

Except for Fiorentina, which he led to win the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa Italiano in 1996 and Valencia with whom he won a Copa Del Rey and UEFA Intertoto Cup as well as qualifying them for the UEFA Champions League, his forte seemed to be, earning teams under his management, promotion to the elite division of their respective leagues.

The Tinkerman tinkered for 27 years without any major cup to show for it, and in his 28th year of football team management, he decided to stick to a tactic and strategy all season, and ended up with the EPL cup, automatic qualification for the UEFA Champions League for Leicester City FC, the 2016 Premier League Manager of the season, the League Management Authority LMA manager of the year, Grand Officer of the Italian Order of Merit and the Enzo Bearzot Award as best Italian Manager of the year and the biggest of them all; the 2016 FIFA Men’s Coach of the year award among many other awards too much to fit into this article!

Nonetheless, with relegation staring the club in the face, Claudio Ranieri was given the marching orders.

Here are 5 lessons marketers can learn from the Ranieri experience.

1.      NEVER CHANGE A WINNING STRATEGY:   Ranieri is famously called “The Tinkerman” because of his team strategy, tactics and formations rotation tendencies. An approach that gave him no tangible result for 27 years. The only season he stuck to one strategy, one tactic and one formation, he had a bountiful harvest, both as an individual and for his employers. Then, he went back to his old ways, tinkering his way into the management’s black book, and eventually into shame and disengagement. One of the biggest brands I had the pleasure of working on, at its peak, had the biggest market share, highest SOV (Share of Voice), brand value ( by virtue of its brand/commercial assets and properties), as well as the TOMA (top of mind awareness) both within its category and cross-category. In its bid to be everything to everybody, and be in tune with trend and the emerging market, today, it is neither here nor there, as it has successfully cannibalized its own brand, and watered down her core essence. If your strategy works, stick to it. Global trends are worth monitoring, but as always, culture is always deeply embedded on a subconscious level in the minds and lives of the consumers, and therefore trumps strategy again, and again!

2.      YOU ARE AS STRONG AS YOUR WEAKEST LINK: Ranieri and Leicester City FC had to learn this the hard way. In the post season analysis of the Leicester City FC story, all the football pundits in the world clearly agreed that their win was attributable to two factors, external and internal. Externally, it was the surprise factor. The usual suspects a la Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal were too relaxed and busy pursuing each other, that by the time Leicester City was far ahead on the table, it was too late to catch up, besides, nobody gave them a chance. Internally, the attack trio (Jamie Vardy, Riyadh Mahrez and Drinkwater) the defence (Huth and Morgan) and the central midfield engine (Ngolo Kante) was just on fleek, but the most important of all the internal factors was Ngolo Kante who had the best record for everybody playing his position in the league. Chief interceptor, chief stopper, chief tackler, chief distributor…..his excellence protected Huth, Morgan and Schmiecel, as well as empowered Vardy, Mahrez, Drinkwater and Okazaki to flourish. Then The Tinkerman tinkered with the formation again, and sold him. While almost the entire team stayed back, except for Ngolo Kante, his replacement was the weakest link in the team. His replacement didn’t have his work rate, couldn’t protect Huth and Morgan, nor could he enable and empower the even-recharged attacking line-up which had been beefed up with Islam Slimani, Ahmed Musa and Winifred Ndidi. As long as that link was weak, the entire team was just as weak. Integrated Marketing Communication is a concerted, organized effort. However, not minding how good the tools used are, how resonating the messages are, how pervasive the used media is, whatever aspect of the whole mix that is neglected, more often than not turns out to be the Achilles heel of the process. It may be the people, the processes or even something as over-looked as disgruntled drivers and office security team.

3.      THE PURSUIT OF SHORT TERM PROFIT IS A TRAP (A proof of greed sometimes). Ngolo Kante was bought from Ligue 1 based Caen FC for 5.6 million pounds in 2015. Chelsea offered 32 milliion pounds only one year after in 2016, and Leicester City pounced on the offer. It looked a good deal at the time, but a deeper look would have showed that his performance was at the centre of the team’s success, and players for his role were not that easy to source. If they were, why was the great Chelsea FC so willing to pay that much, knowing how much he cost just a season ago, coupled with the fact that he is not a striker. While it makes a marketing team look good before the management, when the month’s earnings and profits are looking very good, it is however dangerous if this is pursued to the detriment of long-term brand profitability. The value of a brand should not be singularly measured by how much it earns at the end of the month.

4.      DATA ANALYTICS IS EVERYTHING: Leicester was so carried away by their success that they did not pay attention to salient details which would have come to the fore, had they only taken a closer look at data. Prior to Leicester’s win, it had been 21 years since any team outside Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City won the EPL. And whenever any of these teams won, because their emphasis was always on record-scoring strikers and impregnable goal-keepers shielded by defenders who mostly could also score, the winning points were always high. Looking at data for the last 22 years, Leicester won the league by the least points. This points to the fact that though Vardy and Mahrez were banging in the goals, the success of the team was more attributable to their cohesion and defence, than it was to their attack. Hence, if any sales were to be made, it shouldn’t have been from either the defence or midfield. Proof? How many goals have all the strikers of the team put together, scored this season? How many have they conceded? Missing this single detail led them to invest more into the attack, bringing in Islam Slimani, Ahmed Musa, and Winifred Ndidi. They were expending resource, investing in a department whose problem emanated from another department. Ranieri paid dearly for it.

5. SUCCESS IS FAILURE WITHOUT SUCCESSION PLANNING: Ranieri rested on his oars, perhaps he was too giddy with all the awards and accolades that came his way that he forgot that in football, as it is in marketing, you are as good as your last campaign. Roberto Mancini won Manchester City their first title in 44 years, and was sacked almost a year later, and the team was still in the top 4 when he was sacked. Manuel Pellegrini won three trophies for Manchester City, but was still sacked when he lost the 2014/2015 EPL cup to Jose Mourinho of Chelsea, and was replaced by Pep Guardiola. The same Jose Mourinho who won the 2014/2015 league was promptly given the marching orders when his ability to retain the cup for the 2015/2016 was in doubt. Ranieri thought winning the EPL was enough. He should have sat with Mourinho, Pellegrini and Mancini, the latter two being fellow Italians and had a chat on succession planning. If success must be success, it must be replaced with success. That is why Barcelona is perhaps the most respected football club in the world, cleaning out available titles, domestically and regionally, year after year. Nobody wants to know what you did last year, last month, last week. What are you doing today? What are you achieving today? Past accolades, laurels and achievements, though good, are not good enough anymore today. The key phrase is “at the moment……..” We are in a time of fleeting memories, instant gratification, impatient boards, shifting trends, insensitive C-Suite, itchy feet and fingers consumers. That is why the best consumer personas start with “at the moment…….”, because today’s strategy must better yesterday’s if it must be reckoned with.