Lessons learned from my 13 year old son

In this article I want to provoke you.

I don′t think that you know anything about your customers. And, I am sure that you don′t know anything about how to make them like, share or buy your product.

Why?

Because you are just like me.

You were taught and trained in the assumption that people are rational. You were taught that people, because they are rational, can be segmented and structured as a target audience. And, that, when segmented, marketing and selling is all about explaining your unique selling points to "somebody out there" so that you can effectively push your product out to a waiting audience.

This assumption can be led back to the idea of Scientific management, mass production and mass communication.

Scientific management:

How can we produce enough quickly enough to a waiting mass?

Mass communication:

How can we manipulate the waiting masses, so that they buy our standardized products?

Face it! The "Mass Communication Model" does NOT work anymore

• We are much better off and educated - so mass communication activates our defense mechanism
• We are on information overload in a chaotic world - so we want products that strenghten our group identity
• We don′t just want a product - we want to be unique and belong to a social group

This is why TRIBAL MARKETING is an interesting concept

Tribal Marketing is based on the idea that customer groups are not just groups of individuals sharing geographical location, gender, age, political attitude, etc. People relate to other people because they share a common goal, purpose or passion. And it is their shared values, experiences, feelings, rituals, etc. that tie them together. They are not just an audience. They are a tribe.

The other day, when I was speaking at IBC Kolding, Denmark, I saw this tribe among the audience.

Everybody can tell, that we are dealing with the "Apple Tribe".

They feel connected. They form a group. They have certain rituals and every single one of them send this signal to the world "I am part of the Apple tribe"

Now to the interesting part. When I asked them "What is your tribe all about", they didn′t know what to answer. One guy replied "mmmm... don′t know. It is just a feeling I guess".

So this is an important take away:

You cannot understand tribes by asking them (focus groups) or through big data analysis (questionnaire). They don′t know what to answer, they will just say whatever they think you want to hear, or they will answer according to the group norm that exists in the tribe

So if you want to find and understand the tribe, you have to collect SMALL DATA through tribal exploration. That means that you have to curiously explore the rituals of the tribe.

My sons Tribe

It is rather simple. To illustrate this, I made a little experiment with my son Asger.

Friday afternoon he was sitting with his Ipad:

Me: "Hi, Asger, what are you doing"?

Him: "I am waiting for a drop"

Me: "What is a drop"?

He explained that Golf Wang (A shoe and fashion brand) every Friday release (drop) a limited amount of shoes with a new look. When they make a "drop" the fans have to buy fast because the shops also want to sell the new design in their shops. By doing this, Golf Wang creates a lot of hype. They actually use a number of neuro-triggers: Exclusivity, Social proof, Scarcety.

Me: "How do you know what will be dropped"?

Him: "I follow them on instagram. They show what they will drop next"

Me: "And then you just buy if you like the new design"?

Him: "No, off course not. I print screen what I see and snapchat it to my friends with the text "Do you think that I should buy this"?

Me: "So you ask Mikkel and Simon"?

Him: "No, they are not Golf Wangs - they are "Supremes". I snapchat with Magnus".

This is interesting because Mikkel and Simon live just next to Asger, whereas Magnus live in another town. But Magnus is part of the same tribe, so he is the one to ask. And why ask Magnus? It is because Asger is not just buying a product. He is buying a feeling of belonging to a group and he is checking if this shoe will increase his social currency (The new currency that guides behavior in a tribal context).

So this is how things have changed:

When I was 13 years old, my mother took me to "Bruhn local clothing". This was a little shop in our town where I could choose a pair of nice shoes, take them on, pay, leave, and that was it.

Asger does not buy shoes. He is part of a tribe and the leader of the tribe is Tyler the Creator:

And, Asger invest a lot of energy and feeling in the buying process, and he is willing to wait 3 weeks before he receives his new shoes. And during the three weeks he is dreaming, thinking and talking a lot about his new Golf Wang shoes (He has become a Golf Wang Marketeer). And when he finally receives them he is in love, until the next drop (Increased loyalty).

So how well do you understand your tribes? And how do you build your brand and product around that knowledge?

Jesper Koch. Behavioral Psychologist and expert on neurobranding. (45) 61289797