The marketing sherpa: how new products get up the mountain

Gerard has started describing himself to prospective clients as a marketing sherpa, and this video explains why the analogy earns its keep. Taking a product to market is a mountain climb. Established brands walk a well-trodden path: the route is mapped, so you can plan supplies, stops and base camps, like a package deal up Everest. A genuinely new product has no such path. Doing something that has not been done before means the route changes week to week. You go forward, hit a cliff, step back and come at it from a different angle. A sherpa has been up the mountain before, knows roughly what to expect and carries the tools for when things go wrong. What nobody can honestly present is a precise six month plan. The destination is fixed; the route is discovered on the climb.