Don't forget to deadhead your marketing

This might be surprising to some, but I fancy myself as a gardener. Not an overly serious one, but the hobby kind. I love it. You know, grow a few tomatoes, maybe some basil, sugar snap peas and strawberries - and my favorite thing to do is walk around the garden, watching the growth and progress. My second favorite thing to do is strike up a conversation with a neighbor or bring them some baked goods and sigh, "Oh, the strawberry shortcake? It's nothing. I grew them myself, so really, it's not a big deal." (After a few years of doing this, I think they're onto me and are questioning the authenticity of my humility.)

I know, I should work on it. Shut up.

Regardless of my obviously enviable gardening skills, I admit that I'm not above learning something here or there. Last week, my neighbor was leaving for two weeks with her family and I asked her if she wanted to benefit from my clearly superior watering skills. (I only say this because you can't see her yard. It's mind-numbingly awesome.) "Sure," she said, "but what I really need is for them to get dead-headed. It's really important to stimulate new growth."

I knew old ladies spent time in their gardens nipping off dead blooms - but figured it was just because they were unattractive. (The dead blooms. Not the old ladies. Although now that I think about it, some of the old ladies aren't exactly easy on the eyes.) The notion that cutting off what was no longer producing something of value to stimulate new growth is a concept that I think more of us should think about in our efforts as marketers.

Think about it: Just subscribing to a "if it's not broke, don't fix it" mentality isn't enough. You have to know when to say when. When to call it. And cut it off so that new ideas can come to fruition.

Leo Burnett made truckloads of money with his iconic brand characters. Jolly Green Giant, Tony the Tiger, the Marlboro Man, Pillsbury Doughboy were all his creations. And they worked. Today is a different era. People crave authenticity, not cutesy. In the 50s, cute worked. Today - not so much. When Burger King tried to revive the king icon in 2011, it failed. Miserably. Why? Someone didn't know how to deadhead the marketing.

In other words: the only thing worse than a bad idea, is a good idea who's time has come and gone - and the people who don't know when to let it go.