How about simply focusing on what consumers want?
In this guest post, Peter Mountford argues that brands should think more about what is really going on for consumers
Who here is hoping their favourite brand of toilet paper is going to be organizing a flash mob on their way home from work today?
The othernight I was watching an episode of the UK version of Undercover Boss with my wife. The episode followed Nikki King, the Managing Director of Isuzu trucks UK as she spent time working ‘undercover’ in various parts of her business.
The most interesting part of the show occurred when Ms King realised that one of the employees from their emergency service team was not handing over an apology letter she had written to truck drivers after their trucks had been fixed. The gist of the apology letter was that Isuzu was sorry for any inconvenience caused by their breakdown.
i agree that marketers need a PR sensibility
perhaps if they had one they’d stop these silly short term award-targetted stunts like the NAB Break up campaign and Save Louis the Fly, both of which sought to ‘engage’ a tiny number of consumers outside the marketing blogs and actually did long-term damage to the brand because they were inauthentic and incongruent with the long-term comms strategy of both organisations
Your observations are accurate and obvious, but overlooked by so many marketers.
Nice piece.
Couldn’t agree more!!!
K.I.S.S. theory please.
Great opinion piece
Peter if we really listened to consumers they may say ‘just leave me alone’. In your toilet paper example consumers might say ‘don’t do anything, just sit there on shelf until I’m ready to use you’. That possibly is what they really want. What should we do with that information?
You’re soooo spot on. Now can we forward this article to every agency and client in the southern hemisphere.
Thanks everyone for your comments and having a read.
Adam, that is an interesting question. I have enjoyed a lot of your articles in the past so appreciate your thoughts.
Firstly, I think it is important that we listen to not only what consumers say but also what they do. And if consumers say they don’t want advertising if that was backed up by behaviour that proved this to be true (i.e. by not advertising you get more sales) then this would be great and a client could save a lot of money.
I reality though I don’t think many consumers object to marketing as it is a fact of life but what some consumers would object to is innappropriate communication that interrupts them and shows no sign of understanding what they need.
What we could get from the ‘don’t do anything’ comments however is an understand that toilet paper is not that important or emotional a decision for people so tailor our communication accordingly i.e hold off on the flash mob.
Drop ‘social media’ and just name them for what they are – stunts.
The channel selected is irrelevant. Stunts are stunts.
Of course the shiny new toy is the one most likely to be used for stunts, however it is not the medium that is the stunt.
Otherwise a very true piece. Advertising agencices, and advertisers, need to understand the mental model of their customers and potential customers and accept that sometimes ‘they are just not that into you’ – you don’t need love for a purchase choice.
Great article, thank you. I think that what you’re getting at is that there needs to be more of a _marketing_ mindset than a sales and advertising one (i.e. finding out what people want and then delivering that in the best fashion at a price they’re willing to pay, rather than simply finding creative ways to push products you already have).
Adam, you raise a great question and Peter, you delivered a fantastic response.
Sven, I agree re Louie the Fly (terrible) but if you look deeper into NAB, you’ll find there was a little more substance to it – they’d already lost $300m in fees (NPV I assume) to try and win people over, but thought that people hadn’t noticed. As a result, they decided to relaunched the message with a bang. Perhaps from your comment though, they could have invested a little more of the budget in outlying exactly _why_ they’re different rather than just creatively telling us that they are.
I hate flash mobs.
Very nice piece. Common sense we could all use but most often don’t.
Do consumers want TVCs?
Do they want digital advertising?
I like Quilton toilet paper – that nasty Kleenex tears…
I don’t want a flash mob or a Tweet. I just want loo paper that I can use without getting poo on my hand.
Customers want value for money, good quality and good service. If a business isn’t providing these things, no amount of ‘clever’ marketing will remedy fundamental problems. Most ads, particularly for household essentials or routine services, are patronising, lacking in credibility or annoying, and often all three. The herd stumble into social media is embarrassing. Many Facebook pages are flooded with legitimate complaints, greeted with variations of ‘sorry you feel that way, but we are actually really, really good’. Twitter efforts seem a bit better, possibly because it’s hard to jam huge volumes of idiocy into 140 characters unless you are Charlie Sheen.
Spoke too soon. Twitter has refuted me:
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Wai?
Does every marketing person just mention the QANTAS twitter thing in blogs now?