As I've been writing my Marketing 101 posts it has occurred to me that we as marketers have done exactly the opposite of what we preach. Let me be specific. We have created mountains of jargon that depersonalizes and de-empathizes the consumer. No wonder Kevin Roberts, the author of Love Marks, says,
Brands Can't understand the new consumer. The new consumer is better informed, more critical, less loyal and harder to read.
I think that brands can't understand the new consumer all right. It's because marketers can't understand the new consumer. Because we've distanced ourselves from consumers very efficiently from consumers.
Distanced ourselves through language. I hate talking about "target markets". It sounds like we should point a gun at a target. It sure doesn't sound like we want to have a conversation with our most important customers about what we offer.
I also hate talking about positioning statements, brand visions, brand characters and the like. How about who we are, how we are different and why you will like us? The minute we start using jargon, we depersonalize the consumer. (See, I just did it - the consumer? - talk about depersonalized!). I love to think about my customer as a TV show character. For example, when I worked on Bulls Eye BBQ Sauce, I used the character Tim Taylor, from the TV Show Tool Time, as a representative of the consumers that we were trying to reach. It personified the target and the brand for everyone working on the business in a way that everyone could relate to.
As marketers we really have to be able to visualize walking in the shoes of our customer. I learned this the hard way, when as a 33 year old, I was assigned to work on Total cereal. The average consumer age was in the early 60s. Somehow, I had to start to understand the needs of the average 60 year old, rather than try to push my views, perceptions and values. That was how I learned that seniors are not a single group. For example, someone in their 50s could be marrying for the first time, be a new father, be a new grandfather, or a new widower. They could be retiring, or starting a 3rd career. They could be a fitness addict, or someone experiencing their first life threatening illness.
As marketers, we have to go beyond thinking about our customers as "seniors" or "targets", and start thinking about them as people. Josh Weidman made a great comment in response to my post about marketers' responsibility to educate consumers. He quoted a former president of Merck, who said that if the business was about the patients, then the money would follow. The more we put labels on our customers, the more we think of them in abstract terms, the less we build the Love and Respect that Kevin Roberts so effectively outlines in his book, Love Marks.
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