3 Disagreed Marketing Opinions
1. Customers are not just targets
Generally, there is always a strategy to target the customers and focus all the efforts in order to reach & convert them. In order to do so, brands sometimes, may unintentionally, try to cheat customers. This is not limited to local products or misleading packaging but can be observed in many reputed big brands. Nutella, for example, is always placed near/around the ‘Healthy Breakfast’ shelf of the Modern Trade outlet. A product that has 21g sugar in a serving size of 37g can never be healthy and customers do observe this. Similar case with Milo wherein a 100g ‘Milo Activ Go Health Drink’ (with teenage athletes on the package) contains 50g of Sugar.
Brands should consider the customers as its peers and friends. The approach of fake representation might work in a short run but won’t generate a long-term brand advocacy. Social media has eliminated geographic & demographic barriers, empowering people to connect & communicate their feedbacks about the brands. They are becoming wary of such marketing communication & they rely more on friends, families, fans & followers. They are guarding themselves against bad brands that target them. Hence, the brands should reveal its authentic character & be honest of its true value to end up being a trustworthy brand.
2. Not Everything is Online
Digital disruption is very evident. Be it Netflix for media streaming, Spotify for music streaming, Amazon Pantry (or Big Basket for India) for Grocery retailing, Expedia for Travel, Kindle for Books, Uber for Taxi, Airbnb for stays, LinkedIn for recruitment, Reddit for news or Udemy for education publishing. Digital revolution is becoming a part of new markets and industries. Primarily, it is because of the lowering of barriers to market entry & the use of digital technology to create more substitute products. It is believed that online ‘new wave’ marketing will completely replace offline ‘legacy’ marketing.
In the extremely increasing high-tech environment, human/high touch interaction is becoming the new differentiation. Amex has started using kiosk at the airports to gain more credit card customers, OnePlus is opening new ‘experience’ store in India (they plan to open 100 new experience stores in 50 cities across India), Lenskart, Urbanladder, Nykaa are few other examples.
I don’t agree that Online marketing will replace offline. Clicks-to-bricks is happening for sure and everything old is going to be new again.
3. Customer’s intelligence is overrated
‘If Google doesn’t know the answer, then it’s not a question’ – Bill Murray
Today’s customers are definitely well informed and hence, they are the most powerful lot till date. Most of the customers make more informed purchase decisions and have high level of curiosity & knowledge.
However, the customers are more distracted as well. Their attention span has reduced. A survey by the National Center for Biotechnological Information shows that the average human attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2013. All thanks to the massive, overwhelming, & constant bombardment of information that is crying out loud for instant & complete attention.
It hampers customers’ ability to focus & limits their ability to decide. Thus, many customers follow the wisdom of the crowd. They also have low level of trust in advertisement & have limited time to compare price, features and quality. Hence, customer’s intelligence is overrated & attention is getting scarce.