All too often marketing tries to push out a message without asking what it is the customer wants to hear.
It’s understandable. Of course it is. I want everybody in the world to know that Head First can produce really exciting and effective creative. I can shout about it. I can stop product managers I’ve been stalking for months and tell them that. It won’t necessarily convince them though. Or even interest them.
They might, for example, be a little more interested in whether we can be cost effective, or manage projects efficiently, or meet deadlines. No, no and no.
Only joking, of course we can.
The point, of course, is I can’t just force my message on them. It’s why some companies mistake this message with “brand” but that’s a topic for another rant time.
Discovering what it is the customer wants to hear means gaining insight. It means admitting that not every customer will be interested in what you have to offer because insight often tells us we have nothing in common.
But when we do have something in common, when understanding what it is they need leads to a better understanding of how our product can meet that need well that, that is exciting. That is the start of a bond, a shared value which, after all, is what brand is really about.
A Twitter post on Monday morning caught my eye because it said “Consumers are the new ad agency”. The tweet linked through to a blog which made several statements to back it up.
This was my response:
The word “consumers” is a pretty broad brush but really the usage you employ would cover only a tiny percentage of them. Some consumer generated content has earned respect – but there is only a tiny amount of it and even the Doritos ads were originated (conceptually) by an agency. And did people respond positively because it was user-generated? I have no idea but I wasn’t aware (until this article) that that was what it was. I thought it was just a nicely scripted ad which made me laugh.
Some brands and some consumers are in a two-way dialogue. Equal though? I’m not so sure. In so far as consumers have always had a choice whether to buy product A or not then yes, the responsibility continues to rest in the hands of the consumer.
Social media can empower people but as with most things, most just don’t care. Protests have always helped shaped brands, the digital age has made that easier but in some ways this could be headed for a fall as consumers become desensitized to screaming reactions from the Twitterati. But we’ll see.
Consumers have, in addition, always looked to one another for what brands to support. That’s why agencies take such pains to research and target opinion formers. Even the term “traditional media” is liquid – changing as it does with the shifts in technology that have seen advertising transform across the ages.
From focus groups to the Tupperware party, these affects have always been with us. “Consumers” are no more an ad agency than they ever were.
Social media is broadcast word of mouth, but as with so much else on Twitter – it’s a simplication that helps nobody.
