Consumercy

Lesson on Info aggregation at the Theme park

Was at Busch Gardens this weekend. What was immediately obvious was that a few rides were congested while the others remained more or so empty. And contrary to belief, it was not the quality of the rides that was causing this disproportionate consumer distribution.

As I talked it out with the exasperated people in line with me, I learnt that people were rooted because they had already committed some time to a particular ride and since there was no way to know which other ride would take a lesser time, they thought it better to just wait it out for what it takes.

A lot of people went home jaded not from a sustained adrenaline rush the entire day, but from the aching backs and knees standing for the majority of their time in lines. To make a joyous experience for visitors in theme parks which spend millions, the extra investment would probably be $20,000.

What they need to do: Is install centralised display boards (probably 10 or 15 of 'em) around the theme park which mention the average waiting time for all the rides in the park. And based on the location of a particular display, the ride closest and with the minimum waiting time could be suggested on the display!

Point: 1. Its pertinent for any business to provide the customer with an aggregated information regarding your business anyplace and anytime, to enable him to make judicious use of the avenues you provides him. Equip your customer to make use of you.

2. Is your customer 'locked in' with you just because he's committed time or money. And that it says nothing of your remarkability? In which case you have left a lot of ground uncovered for your challenger to beat you and that too by sparing just a little extra thought

Revisiting congregation of aliens

Its interesting how parametrics like number of downloads and number of forwards are taken as measures to the 'success' or failure of an online launch. Easy as they come, these parametrics are anything but fine yardsticks to measure hits or flops.

Is 'number of downloads' an indicator to the quality of the product? p2p top movie downloads are actually the most average to low performers at the box office. they are mostly movies which people would pass watching at the theatres and rather download for free over morpheus.

The number of chain forwards that have circulated in 2005 exceed 10 billion. Viagra spamming ranks the highest at 6 billion. And that's no way a measure of the success of the viagra online marketing campaign.

Duncan J watts & Steve Hasker talk about utilizing social influences to device marketing strategies in the current issue of HBR. My questions to which are: Is success a comparative analysis or the measure of actual returns versus what's expected. Are the movies 'Shawshank Redemption' and 'Pi' online selling successes or gross theatrical failures? What are the parameters of measurement here?

To which I wrote 'conforming to aliens' quite sometime back.

Quick getaway affirms easier entry

Almost all marketing gimmicks are quicksand. Or so we've come to believe in course of our experiences.

A telephone contract that you can't blotch. A yearly music subscription from napster or yahoo that doesn't talk to your ipod. An ecomxpo sponsorship that audience with firefox can't attend. A fund premium that bogs you down till the end that doesn't come. So what was different about this call that i took today?

The rep, out selling credit cards started off with the usual rant about the credit limits, interest rates, bonuses... in one breath taking me to the quick brink of deafness. But just when I was about to hang up she said, " All you have to do to quit is break the card and dump it in a bin in one of our (or our affliates) ATM booths. No forms. No calls. No statements"

Now that,I think is the winning statement which we all as consumers want to hear. That we are 'FREE'. Not that they can bind us any longer than we want. But they sure can create a lot of hassles to exit them, oh yeah. The starting pitch ought to be, "We do not seek to confine you, if you aren't excited with your business with us. But we 'd like to know why". There, you are quelling the foremost fear of the consumer at the outstart. He knows he isn't entering a dungeon thereon.

I 'am willing to sign on this new card. But then again, there's one in my wallet that needs doing away with, not without filling up a few forms, credit history checks, and a trip to a branch a couple of miles away.

Ponderance

Ten years. Internet promised to make self-learners of us all. Then how is it that consultants and auditors such as myself are yet stuck in the business of telling them how they ought to run theirs?

Point:

1. Never ever can a process reach it's most potent form without room to get better 2. An external body is most trusted as are one's own abilities frequently undermined 3. Ignorance & intelligence are relative. The latter cashes on the former

mass market?

Things work differently in different places. The idea therefore is go get it working not as a collective bargain but as a fragmented wont. Why, the same vegetables are cut differently in different geographies and mixed with the same herbs & spices resulting in the same taste. Yet catering not to the satisfaction of all 'em tastebuds.

"Consumer" isn't a universal set of sameness. Rather a collection of several disjoint sets, each its own. Each in want of it's own.

Routine

Doing the same thing the same way in a standardized way leads to the boogie sensation of prolongingness. The same one gets doing an eight hour desk job. The same many companies get hypnotically miming ISO's. At the end you feel you've existed longer than you've been around. From the outside you've achieved nothing new.

Sensibilities

If every organization wants to reach to the same answer on 'the best way to make money' then I as a consumer feel sorry on what i have to live with. Cheaper products.

When one is bent upon fitting most into a box, one doesn't even think of building a bigger box. The presence of a billion da vinci's would've been chaotic. The absence of any in organizations keeps 'em rooted. And so, much hair shedding on cost stripping meausres keeps many a unsensible companies from cashing on the unsensible consumers who still can't help piling up on easy loan and credit card debts

Point: Consumer spending is on a high inspite of the rising interest rates. But in order to pinch their pockets, which anyways is unguarded, companies need to create something genuinely desirable/distinguishable and not just try playing the low price game.

huddling out the brilliance

The ascendants seldom took time-off and worked religiously on their blogspaces. But will deserving progeny take greater vacation as they are cornered to lesser and lesser space on the blogosphere?

Tom Peters, Mark Zorro, Rick Bruner are just a few bloggers turned apparitions whose typeprints one sees in the past tense. Others are thinning on their regularity. On one side blogs are being heralded for change in business dynamics. On the other the initiators are abandoning it.

Rest are turning to company's or one's own press. Case of crowd cordoning the creators and the content? In light, does blogging really have anything but a stale future?

Countering Doc

The thing about Doc Searls at times is that he doesn’t make sense. Re-read this:

“…customers don’t like being “consumers” or “targets.” Being “reduced” doesn’t stir their hearts, either. Least of all do they wish to be “acquired”

How can one possibly be wont of ‘un-acquiredness’ and yet be termed a ‘customer’? Correct is he when he asserts the desire of un-tamingness on behalf of Consumers. But that’s that! A consumer today wants the choicest of attention, best of services & products minus the strings of loyalty and obligations attached. And begets it.

He then shall swerve at the slightest discontent and shall expend heartily if content. Therefore today’s consumer is a perennial consumer and not a customer.

Point: Strike ‘customer’ from the trite-list if you may. But Consumer is the word of today and the future. Customer-holding days are bygone. Strategy resting on customer-loyalty  is hee-haw.

Oft the difference between 'consumer-acquisition' and 'customer-retention' is the banality of promises that are rendered during prospecting that one doesn't keep.

The shift from customerization to consumerization shall keep the companies on their toes as: one, they need to make promises they can keep and two,they shall cease to have "customers" whose loyalty they can take for granted.

The "Determined" Consumer

Every human has it in him to deliberate on one and vie for the other. It's interesting how many shoppers end up buying what they weren't out to buy.       

'Compulsive Shopping' as it is termed stems from several factors as dark as stress, anger, depression....sertonin levels et'al. But amusing is the facet wherein a normal guy is out with a clear mind on what he is out to get, and yet spends on the other.

I went out to buy me a pair of formal trousers. That's it and nothing else. Few shops and no luck later I unconciously was trying out shirts, then jeans, and then neck-ties. Finally I came home with jogging shorts and a tee-shirt.

It's common with consumers wherein they pin themselves to buying a certain something thus programming their left brain(where analytics, reasoning reside) like one does for everything from accounting to hoodwinking. However the right brain where DESIRE rests is left unchained. So, as one goes "just knowing what to buy" his peripheral vision (not the strained & programmed one) is let loose. The desires are let large. The left brain analytics tells him that he does have 'allocated resources' to expend and the lethal mix of the two gets the jogging shorts out of the rack and into the wardrobe.

Point: No reason why shops sectionalise clothes or their wares alike. Separate areas for shirts, accessories etcetera. A consumer out to buy a hat is as likely to buy sneakers as one out to buy sneakers. Supply adequate 'food' to the consumer's peripharal vision. Place a mix of 'desirable' and 'varied' items alongside.

It's oft that easy to shoot a determined consumer.

The Target? The Approach?

The beggar at Grand Central Terminal got the dimes. The panhandler in the NYC subway didn't. While the former prosthetic played pan-pipes in a self absorbent way and people paused to listen, the latter was impudent, menacing, half-demanding as he zig-zagged in a pilled-up state.

People(read consumers), have always been willing to expend for a cause. Provided the cause is genuine and comes undemanding. Sing them ten reasons why they should do it and they'll shirk. Let them deduce their own reason and you'll surely get them to play.

He didn't ask for money, that former tramp. He didn't demonstrate cut limbs. He didn't sob. He wasn't a yob. But an artist, a human with self respect, and one who didn't infringe on other's. He got other's to think in favor of him without pushing. He didn't bifurcate his target. But got the reaction.

Now juxtapose this:

Martial Rolland, MD Nestle India, says Maggi(instant 2 minute noodles) sells 12% more to single working men and women than to households with kids. The advertisements contrarily have ever always targeted the latter.

He spends tons on one and gets his revenues from the other. haw!

Recent NDTV survey says, working women spend 30% more on consumer durables than homemakers. But spend 15% lesser time watching television. FMCG adverts continue pinning homemakers.

Yet somehow!.., Adi Godrej, MD Godrej Industries believes in spending 50% more on Television commercials in the coming year.

Point: What's targetted at one succeeds with the other because it serves a purpose irrespectively. But then, it refutes the very need to target anyone specifically!

If a product or service purports a cause then it shall by itself pull everyone linked or willing to link with that cause. Gala-going-behind is not needed nor heeded by the consumer.

Serve a purpose, not sections of consumers. What market segment does Maggi fulfil-- kids? bachelors and spinsters? elders? Easy, simple, fast, healthy food sells irrespective segments. So can all products/services. Adopt a cause. Attribute it to your product. Champion that cause. All for the cause, shall be lead to your product. Cause-segmentalise. "Market-segment" is a sticky lingo with all the ruminating it's been through. Spit it.

maroon memories

Been wrestling with the hours in a day and seemingly unable to put down what work got accomplished in each day that went by. In times, meeting with old friends is mighty fine.

Past weekend we discussed about grad school. And my Maroon trousers. Ralph Lauren's. Prized possesion. Coz of the brand. Aunt got 'em. No takers in the family. So I claimed it, and wore it to the amusement of all. Got to be known for it by 'em peers and faculty.

But each time I put 'em on i had to overcome a strong feeling of apprehension, perhaps even fear of unsolicited comment. Come to think of it, apprehension was the difference between being unwitnessed and being commented upon.

Being commented upon is a process. Process is about movement. About involvement.

Most actions are curbed prior start, all for apprehension and fear of the offing. Prominence is traded for being herded. Organizations, people, websites alike face fate for they fail to be takers to the brilliance of being maroon.

not my call

Amusing, how much attention is paid to a ringing phone. The attention is perhaps inversely proportional to one's spacing from the device. And the proximity has a bearing on the ownership of the call. A Call can be an enquiry, suggestion, help, order, request. A caller can be a prospect, an investor or a client.

Ever wonder how much your organization is losing on unattended calls. Oh, yes it sure is. For everywhere i look, in whichever organization, there's this phone ringing in some "remote" desk. It could be an any department, any division, any person's call. BUT it's your organization's call. Take a little effort to get the caller to an apposite resource. Don't ignore a ringing phone. "A ringing phone has to be answered" 

are you done with what you could?

Spank your product until it admits it's strength. The strength that eventually embellishes your brand. Brands may exist in the mind, but the financial objectives they purport isn't abstract. Brands are built at every point of contact with a consumer. If a functional advantage can be matched by another, the job is to chalk out an advantage in terms of character/personality/deliverability. No can clutter. But confidence that reaches out to the consumer.

Consumers like being self-indulging. Unfortunately, they don't expect the same from the advertisers and marketeers. Under the circumstances, "Mine's the most skin friendly soap" doesn't quite resonate with the consumer. Contrarily, "Dove's" litmus test is an example. A simple test allows each consumer to indulge in the affirmation and strengthening of the brand. It doesn't "claim" fame. It doesn't attack Oil of Olay. But defeats it.

A contrast needn't be achieved by changing the background. But perhaps by changing one's own presentibility against that backdrop. Dove achieves that. Similarily while 'Tide' takes to reprimanding those who dirty themselves (in all it's commercials) and suggests it's detergent as a 'corrective measure', Ariel takes to dirt as a 'residue of enjoyment', be it the kids playing in the dirt, eating mustard dripping hot-dogs, mehendi sessions etcetera. And suggests itself as a 'utility' as it is rightly so. Life is about enjoyment. And detergent is not the center of it. That's how this message comes across. Swell!

Point: Not always about what you say. It's how you do and say that matters. What you do and say accumulates to your brand over time. But you can't say one and do the other. So the product and the deliverables have to be in consonance with the vouch. Meaningfulness ought to be the objective. Not 10 seconds of TV entertainment. Not logos and stars and painting the town red.

Gibe: Pepsi Bubbly ad (I had to get this out of my system) is the shoddiest example of this. It fails at both.

easy way out

1. Roll up your car windows rather than fight for pollution free norms. Compartmentalize comfort
2. Shun one's own country and migrate to one where life's cleaner, smoother and one is coerced to follow rules that one wouldn't follow in one's own accord in one's own land just because it wasn't a rule there. Do the right by coercion than by one's own conciousness
3. Dial a plumber and pay him $50 for what could be done with $2 M-Seal.  Trade effort for expense
4. Expend on celebrity endorsements than peruse and invest on remodelling customer experiences.  Compensate braindeath for $50 million
5. Adapt screenplays and remake versions than write a fresh one. Revel past successes. Bank on else's creativity to mask one's lack of it                        
6. Slander the system and the people in it rather than mend it or streamline their objectives. Favor verbosity to verbal clarity 
7. Ascribe dipping sales to market fluctuation and the war in the Gaza strip. Ascribe; don't subscribe to alterthought. Defend and justify; don't accept and change 
8. Throwaway 3 million for 10 seconds airtime. Spare not, 10 seconds for 3 million customers. Sponsor F1's. Not half of that in ten years for hospitals, shelter homes, environment. Believe that 'smack the face' advertising works better than 'win by deeds' advertising
9. Divorce. Not pacify. Prefer immediate escape to future fending
10. Praise gurus. Herald leaders.Try not to become one yourself. Awe organizations. Don't work to create one. Quote Tolstoy. Don't pen your own. Concur not counter. Pledge by the famous. Consign to covenants

Consumothered!

Behind every star is a mass distaste. For every three shoddy releases there are three thousand shoddy consumers. By shoddy I mean: unquestioning consumers, distatsteful consumers, complying consumers, thoughtless consumers, gutless consumers, gullible consumers, unaware consumers. There are just too many of 'em.

The reason i like blogs? Because it makes thinkers out of readers. Or attempts to. That's it. Period. But then again, is there a use. How many spare three minutes to think a day? Compare that to several inane consumers. Are they multiplying or dividing. Make two's of one. Or two halves of one. Ultimately there's two pieces of 'em around!

No, "I don't think Britney sounds any better than a pilled frump on the sidewalk". "And anyone liking her is a sure indicator of the quantum of brain and personality floating about" - The problem here though is that everytime I voice my verdict on someone's distaste, instantly do i turn distasteful in that person's verdict. And so, more such mutually distasteful consumer clans arise.

As long as this continues to happen product makers shall slip by berating consumers.  And perhaps berate one to the joy of the other! Where then is the beginning of the bend?

Point: No Point. Sigh.

who likes digitized Chuck Berry?

If sustainance itself is in flux, then what we strategize today is already impertinent. Everything seems intelligible in perspective to the past. What of me, when i see myself tomorrow?

Change happens. Shit happens. Some changes are shit. Shrek's fine. But then again, i don't relish digitized Chuck Berry. Blue pepsi. Automated voice responses.

the 'Everyone Likes'

A long time later i went to the park yesterday with some friends. A long time later one of us bought soap bubbles. Awkward as it may have seemed then, i was quite amused to see that a few other elderly people were blowing bubbles too!Some to indulge their kids. Some perhaps with a heady-state as our very own.

Interesting to note is; how many people at any given point, on any given topic, on any given product, service or campaign have an unanimity - in support and in negation of the motion.

On these lines, if an organization could just sit back and think "what does EVERYBODY like?" and then incorporate a mix of most of these points, based on relevance and priority, in their next move(product, campaign, or event) one could perhaps see the difference.

here's my two shekels. Everyone likes:

1) Some or the other shade of the colour 'Blue' 2) Sex 3) Fish Tanks 4) One's own children 5) Other's possessions 6) Respect, smile and praise 7) One's religion 8) The countryside 9) Clean toilets, clean air,& uncluttered websites 11) Humor 12) Guitar 13) Weekends 14) Quick Downloads 15) Treasure hunt 16) Sloth 17) Eating 18) To be in command 19) To reach office faster 20) Simple reading

Point: Many more 'everyone likes' can be arrived at. The starting point could be, 'what appeals to your personal self'. Take it on from there to the people within your own organization, and thereafter outside your walls and onto the streets.

Collect the 'everyone likes'. These are your next big ideas for your next big venture.

Peak Traffic Handling

Yes. You have it in you to be good to consumers, customers and people. Everybody has. The question is, how long or how much before it wears off? Are you a demon the customer rather not wish to confront much or confront at all. And does it get worse when you are into 'Peak Traffic Handling'?

Most behind-the-counter humans are good to you when you are the only business they have. There are ten tending to you then. But no sooner than the busy-ness increases, do they drip-dry their syrupyness.

Handling Peak traffic without a change in attitude could be that 'edge' which many don't offer. If the alibi is 'too many people to tend in too less a time', Consumercy says, " Consumers whine about sluggish processes. A sad system shows. Consumers rarely complain if it's good service that's taking the extra time. It shows that they can expect the same"

Point: Pity. Ray Kroc's establishment has played up to speed to forego friendliness. It's just so evident at any Mc D's. Chez Monique' in Garden City is contrarily worth the wait.

looking back...and the same thought holds

It's been ten months since I started out with this blog and everyday I get tons of landings from searches made on topics that I don't even remember jotting now. Aerosoles. Bathroom graffitis shop. Jelepenos. etc. From France, US, Thailand, Kenya and all around.

Nevertheless, everytime a search does ping in I trackback and check what it was that this stranger got to read when he visited my thoughts. Did he like what he read? Did he concur? Did he read the entire thing or scurried off a few lines in? More importantly, did he get what he was searching? Were my thoughts capable of simmering his own?

Is he coming back? If any of the prior questions were answered in the affirmative, then he has a reason to come back.

I think of blogs as a trip in a shopping mall elevator as an 'undecided' consumer. You get into the lift. You just wanna dock at some floor, yet undecided. The elevator stops at each floor and the doors open. How do you decide which floor to walk into? In the few moments that you can steal a glimpse of the floor yonder the open lift doors, if what you see attracts you, you walk in. Or if you see a big chunk of your fellow lift travellers landing on a particular floor you follow suit.

And what holds for blogs holds for businesses too. Consumers follow sight, sense, experience, or they simply follow other consumers. Make thy wares really useful to the community you mark and better still 'admirable' for the stray consumers too(my blog is purely for the marketing oriented. however anybody can relate to it as everybody's out shopping. everyone's consumer), keep 'em ready and polished and wait for the first batch to set foot.

Point: You never shall know from where they shall come or how they ever got to know of you. But as long as they got what they wanted, found more reasons to your product than they set out searching for and a relationship to take back, they for sure are coming for more.