Some thoughts about Marketing, Advertising, and Business.

This weekend, as I strolled along the sandy beach near my home, I considered the trend of advertisements we all see on the internet and television these past few years. ??

Like many of you have noticed, the advertisements and imagery we see of the products and services offered by companies, charities, and government organisations, display their customers as a generalised imaginary 21st century family. ?Intended to cover all bases, this image is not recognised by 80% of the people in the UK who view the advertisement.?

In years gone by, the marketing world has focused on the customer.? In those halcyon days of advertising, we as customers, would laugh, aspire, and engage with the memorable advertisements that we read or watched in our daily consumption of the advertiser’s offerings.??

As a marketeer, understanding customers in those days, was fraught with much guesswork, focus groups and surveys. ?Analysing the resultant data for insights into the way customers think and acted on the expensively produced, short 30 second videos that was presented to us between our favourite programmes on television.??

Who can forget the coffee advertisements that were more intriguing than a soap opera. The humour of chimpanzees in the tea adverts that mimicked human behaviour in various scenarios: “Do you know the piano is on my foot?”? “You hum it son, I’ll play it.” The hapless man, who resorted to lighting a brand of cigar after a mishap. ?Remember the music? I bet your humming it right now.?

No technology to help.

Back then, the cost of creating, producing, and publishing such memorable pearls was considerable, and the preserve of big, cash rich companies. ?But they all had one thing in common, they reflected the core customer in the imagery, the 80% that represented the people whom advertising agencies knew, would purchase the product.? This is how they grew their brand and the loyalty of their customers. ??The advertisements became talking points at lunch breaks and in pubs around the country, extending the range of the broadcast via word of mouth.?

Today’s Technology

Today, in our technologically enhanced digital environment, we are tracked and traced by data harvesters whenever we interact using a digital device.? Our search histories, viewing habits and even our telephone conversations are scanned for keywords and intent.? If you use a digital technology, someone is gathering data. ?It is analysed and sold to marketing agencies to target advertisements at you, because you mentioned something in a phone or text or searched for a product. ?It happens in minutes.? Have you ever spoken to someone on the phone about something you were thinking of buying to find advertisements on your social media or news feed promoting the very same thing??

Technology has been a boon to marketeers and advertisers, they are now able to gather the data, analyse it and create an advertising campaign quickly. With this access to customers’ data, you would think that advertisers could design, create, and publish advertisements that reflected the person they are pitching to.? With the advent of “artificial intelligence” (AI), one would expect that this would be straightforward. ?

A Speech.?

Back in 2001, I did a presentation on Internet Marketing to the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).? The 200+ audience, was made up of students, members, Chartered members, and Fellows of the CIM. ?I engaged the audience and started pitching the importance of the internet as a tool to reach new customers in future marketing campaigns. ?It occurred to me, as I stood on the stage, that the gathered illuminati of the CIM, had abandoned nearly 100 years of acquired knowledge, because they did not know how to use this new medium. ?

?It is 21 years since I did that presentation, in that time I have seen the total abandonment of the fundamentals of marketing and a “free for all” approach to promoting online that has infiltrated offline channels.? The customer is no longer king. the company is.? Dictating philosophical soundbites that have nothing to do with customer engagement or selling.?? Customers have been abandoned for political plaudits.?

This is self-evident in the growing number of big companies that have lost billions in revenue by ignoring their customers and pushing messages that do not relate to their core customers.? Remember, those 80% that contribute to turnover and profits. ??

A foot in two camps.

The advantage of my age is I have lived in both internet and pre internet times.? I have seen what was and what is now. ?As a marketer, the customer was the focus and always will be if you want a sustainable business.? If businesses want to be around in 100 years’ time, they need to get back to understanding their customers on a human level.? Not as a series of data points that need to be analysed. That data is restricted to those who have reached the website and purchased.? It does not gather data on the greater number of potential customers that never make it there.

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The questions.

What have been your experiences? Am I correct in my thoughts and opinions? Or am I wrong?? What do you think?

Distressed?

If you have been distressed by the content of this article, please contact Nigel T Packer to discuss how you can refocus on your customers to grow your business.

This content is 100% human generated.