One of the most profound differences between the act of consuming a brand and the task of marketing it is the degree of intimacy involved. For all but the most ethereal of categories, consumption intimacy means exactly that. The product might well end up inside the person (snack, beer, analgesic), or the person might well end up inside the product (hotel, aircraft, bank).
Either way, it’s a physical experience, replete with sounds, smells, sensations and, above all, touch – enough to give that marketing buzzword ‘touchpoint’ some real meaning. Consumption, for the most part, is a hands-on affair. Marketing, increasingly, is a hands-off discipline, conducted by intermediate means. You can walk through the marketing department of a big global brand, weaving past people intently focused on screens, and realise that, were it not for the company name on your visitor’s badge, you’d have no idea of even the category that was the point of it all.
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One day, the story of how Samsung eclipsed Nokia as the number one mobile phone brand by handset shipments will be written up as a case, to be studied by eager students at top business schools.
Like all cases where an ‘outcome’ is known, the steps along the way will seem neater than they were at the time, and carry about them an inevitability that would not always have been apparent to the contemporary players and analysts. The role of luck will be downplayed; the roles of the big management beasts will be brought to the fore. Cases need narrative momentum as much as movies do.
So the class of, say, 2016 will read how Nokia seemed to sleepwalk its way to demotion, how its 14-year reign at the top descended into a mishmash of too few trials and too many errors, and how Samsung’s firmer grasp of technology, sleeker internal structures and sassier design propelled it with irresistible force to pre-eminence.
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You’ve just woken up and already there’s a critical text from the boss, ending with that most patronising of words: ‘disappointed’. Your sense of powerlessness isn’t helped by the commute to work, and the humourless jobsworth who takes you to task about your lapsed travel card. By the time you’ve stopped at Starbucks on your way in, your self-esteem is already heading south, and the working day hasn’t even begun yet.
As you step forward in the queue to make your normal order, something prompts you to think again. Hey, never mind the usual, standard-size latte; today, let’s make it a grande.
According to a US study, just published in the Journal of Consumer Research, your sudden upsizing is no accident. Through a series of experiments involving different-sized drink and snack options, the authors demonstrate a clear relationship between choice of portion size and perceived status. Those who feel their current status to be low are markedly more likely to reach for bigger sizes from a range of options. Supersizing isn’t simple greed; it’s an ego-boost.
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One of the cleverest fundraising ideas devised by the charity sector was the Christmas goat. Instead of wrapping up some possibly unwanted item of merchandise, you would buy a goat for a poor family in the developing world, and your loved one would open a fun card celebrating the good deed. It captured the imaginations of millions and earned a significant share of Christmas gift spend.
The goat is symbolic of two truths about charities and charitable giving. First, successful charities are at heart businesses, and the best of them display a highly nuanced approach to marketing.
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It began as a spontaneous fusion of creative exuberance and commercial opportunism. The clever, branded clip, the watchable, cheaply shot video for a niche product, the edgy edit of a popular TV ad, uploaded, seeded and, fingers crossed, freely shared. The aim was as simple as it was innocent: to break through, to be viewed by millions – to go viral.
Now, though, it’s all metrics and ROI, just like every other branch of marketing communications. The coming of age was crystallised one month ago when Marc Pritchard, chief marketing officer of Procter & Gamble, put a number on the line between success and failure. ‘If a brand video gets 7000 hits in three days,’ he told a rapt WACL audience, ‘take it down. It’s a pig.’
So marketers and their creative luminaries find themselves huddled in a more earnest, target-driven approach to creating online content, anxious to ensure that their efforts will do what pigs do not, and fly. It’s a more serious game now. What are the rules, though? What are the red-hot pointers to viral success?
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I have just taken two days out of the office to take part in the judging of the annual Account Planning Group (APG) Creative Strategy Awards. It was great, and I was privileged to see some really ingenious strategic thinking and witness some truly compelling presentations.
Here’s something that struck me though: planners would sometimes report or suggest that they had devised a ‘new’ and clever methodology, framework or theory in their approach to solving the particular strategic problem. But in reality, in some cases at least, these ideas were actually the same as, or very similar to, existing ideas from academics, and well documented in the strategic or marketing academic cannon. Read More »
In my column last week (Marketing, 08 June), I referenced an academic study just published in the Journal of Consumer Research, about the vitriol consumers reserve for once-cherished brands that let them down. There wasn’t space to do it justice there, so I’ll expand on it here, if only as a warning to all those marketers intent on building ‘emotional brand connection’ with consumers. As this research shows, emotion is a two-way street.
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This spring I have been back at my Alma Mater – London Business School (LBS) – delivering my guest lecture slot on internal brand engagement. With a marketing faculty to die for, and ranked top global business school by the FT, you would think that LBS itself would have this branding thing all sorted, wouldn’t you?
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We are confused.
We are bemused.
We are left with a sort of vague sense of déjà vu.
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Occasionally, after one of my columns in Marketing, a letter floods in. But of the 28 columns that I have written to date, just two account for the bulk of the total response. Both of those have been about the research industry: the first, Always Question the Facts (June 2), was a reminder that it is OK to interrogate research ‘findings’ and to keep an eye on the procedure of analysis and interpretation that is used to arrive at findings – particularly in qualitative research. The second, a couple of weeks ago, questioned the role that research companies can realistically play as self-styled ‘providers of insight’. Read More »
One of the most profound differences between the act of consuming a brand and the task of marketing it is the degree of intimacy involved. For all but the most ethereal of categories, consumption intimacy means exactly that. The product might well end up inside the person (snack, beer, analgesic), or the person might well end up inside the product (hotel, aircraft, bank).
