Moneyball: B2B Marketing Lessons
From the Academy Award-Winning Movie a discussions with Founder & CMO of Entry Point 1, Tim Hillison, and Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios.
Moneyball is based on a true story about the general manager of the Oakland Athletics trying to assemble a competitive baseball team on a tight budget. This comes after the A’s loss to the Yankees the previous year, in 2001, and as they’re losing their star players. So the GM, Billy Beane, teams up with player analyst and Yale economics grad, Peter Brand, and together they use sabermetrics to evaluate and sign undervalued players.
Sabermetrics are statistics of in-game activity, including batting, pitching and fielding. The term comes from the acronym SABR, for the Society for American Baseball Research. It’s a way to look objectively at player performance. In other words, Peter Brand says it’s a way to “find value in players that nobody else can see. People are overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws. Age, appearance, and personality.”
So the movie is about challenging a traditional value system, where big city teams that have money can afford better players whereas small market teams have to be more strategic about who they sign.
The movie came out in 2011 and is based on a book by author Michael Lewis called Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. It stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane and Jonah Hill as Peter Brand. It was directed by Bennett Miller and the screenplay is by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
About Entry Point 1
Tim Hillison is the founder & CMO of Entry Point 1, which specializes in connecting marketing to business outcomes across the customer journey.
He’s worked with emerging global brands and Fortune 500 enterprises in the US, Europe, and Asia for 25 years. www.entrypoint1.com
About Caspian Studios
Founded by Ian Faison as the first Podcast-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider, Caspian Studios is on a mission to help marketers build remarkable podcasts, content and communities that improve people’s careers.
