Consumercy

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.

The Contextual Consumer

If you are busy painting for the customers who might walk in, you are'nt dry ready for the 'contextual consumers' who will walk in. howzzat? well, "simply because everything's contextual", says Consumercy.

"Client flu. meeting called off. no alternate assignment. friend called. 3pm. shopping and all. me free. bike, no car. took off early from office. overcast sky. still drove. began to rain..cats & dogs. started getting drenched. frantic search for shelter. all shops & streethouses closed (afternoon nap time). small tea stall with large tarpoline shed. drove under. waited.and waited. Many riders came in. Finally, began the queue for tea and hot crullers. dug in, me too!"

Had the chap planned for his regular customers who walk in at 5pm business hours, he would have missed the huge business he got at 3. All his customers at 3 were "contextual customers". All were there at that time not by plan, not by design, but by a string of contextual happenings.

Next time on, each of the riders under that tarpoline at 3(and their pals), would not hesitate to take a ride on an overcast day, because there's the man selling tea somewhere enroute, thoughtful enough to have plenty a shelter to provide.

Point: 1.Everything is contextual. In one way or the other. One event can lead to the other and the roll-over can translate to a sale. The question is are you there where and when it happens?

2. The tea guy was not 'selling tea and crullers'. He was providing shelter to rain-struck bikers. The thoughtfulness translated to sales. In a string of contextual events, is your service/fare a "final context in itself", to facilitate 'consumer docking' ?

And sometimes it's the happy customer you oughta be careful of!

There's this acquaintance of mine who probably forgot that he purchased his jerkin with me a while back. Good threads indeed. Maybe he remembered, but getting caught lying (by me) was a trade-off he was willing to take for not having anyone else wearing the same jacket. And so he told the other guy," Purchased it on one of my trips. Don't exactly remember where."

The shop sold one jacket less right there. And similarily perhaps many more.

In the scram to own something unique, consumers can sometimes prevaricate. You can't blame them for liking your stuff too much to not let anyone else have it! So what do you do?

Point: 1.Try to make exclusive items. Just one of a kind and no more. Consumers shall pay for it. Designers like Zara are a good example at that.

2. Referrals. Get consumers to be a part of it. And to do so, offer a gift that is exclusive in itself. Could be an inexpensive imitation, handicraft, memento...but none like it.

3. Create a fraternity programme around your product. But naturally it's in the interest of existing consumers to rope in more consumers to make the fraternity and therefore themselves prominent! The example that immediately hits the mind is Nike's Lance Armstrong- Live Strong Band

Sometimes the wall can be the happy consumer himself. The idea is not to go around him. But to take him in.

The Neon Light Theory

Two highway inns. Both with neon signs. The difference however is that one keeps it on at all times while the other flashes it 'off and on' every two seconds. Interestingly, while i skipped 'observing' the former, i read the latter.

The second motel got the attention and spent half on power consumption!

Point: To get consumer attention use the off-to-on theory. Before an important announcement, gig, launch let there be lull. The lull provides time to the consumer to regain steady state before you excite him again with your offering. Don't barge him with too many products, adverts, offers, announcements, songs/jingles that he cannot comprehend the true nature of the pitch that you intend to deliver. Space and time your fares such that each is recognizable and adressable.

Use blinkers while changing lanes and read this example, old but relevant.