I recently attended the AWS Summit in Dubai, a great piece of Stakeholder Marketing that brought together clients, developers, partners and others to experience the AWS ecosystem. 

But the thing that struck me, as I walked around the Dubai World Trade Centre, was the lack of differentiation in the Value Promises that were written in large font on the stands of the exhibiting brands. Most are banal. Some are completely meaningless. A few of them are global companies that have huge marketing departments, and yet this is the best they can come up with. 

Somewhere, someone signed off the booth design. Someone saw the mock-ups with a cost against them and thought - "That will do". 

It's an example of what can happen if you don't have a marketing leader in the business. All of the companies are quite technical in nature. The tools and services being sold have been created by smart people who know how to code products. They probably have Pre-sales consultants and talented Business Development specialists to close deals, but on the face of it, they don't have a Marketing person in the building. 

It's a great case for a Fractional CMO. You don't need a Chief Marketing Officer all the time. Your product team run the product and the revenue team runs the pipeline. But occasionally, you need someone who is a champion for the brand you are building. Because without the brand, your pitch means almost nothing - especially when compared to all your competitors.  

Below, is a list of all the slogans and taglines for the brands at the AWS Summit in Dubai. Tell me how you work out a) What these companies do and B) How they are different or better than anyone else. I have removed the brands on purpose. 

• Applied AI for the enterprise 
• AI that works for software built to grow up, not grow old
• Advanced cloud & AI solutions
• Real-time database for the AI era
• Full-stack observability for the AI era
• Driving FinOps forward
• Shaping what's next together
• AI driven software delivery lifecycle
• Beyond continuity with ai-powered resilience 
• We make your data work with AWS
• Mission critical security for cyber resilience 
• Automation you can govern
• Secure AI, fuel innovation. 
• Engineering what's next
• AI observability. Observability for AI
• We secure humans, data &AI
• Build responsible AI narratives
• Powering transformation through AI
• AI coding environments for enterprise scale. 
• AI for everything after code
• Fast agents, fast apps
• The way is open 
• Operational resilience in uncertain times 
• Make AWS work harder for your business 
• Growth optimised 
• Unleash the value of gen AI with greater speed, scale and trust 
• Powering the always on, real-time economy
• Every app. All data. Any agent. Zero anarchy. 
• Connect and protect in the AI era

If you recognise your own company's sales material in that list, give me a call. You might need some help.