Consumercy

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"