The Hindu Business Line : Don't hope for `return to normal'

Seismic shifts are happening in the marketplace, and a revolution rages on in the streets. So, how do you get on `the right side of the barricade'? Punk Marketing by Richard Laermer and Mark Simmons from Collins (www.landmarkonthenet.com) can help. The book presents a manifesto for businesspeopel who want to engage the consumer coherently "in an age of digital video recorders, `branded' entertainment, cell-phone TV, multiplayer online games, and never-ending social networking."

Woefully, much of the marketing industry hasn't caught up with "the changed relationship consumers have with brands." The authors find marketers and their advisers largely still thinking and working in their old ways: "Buying media and creating messages that interrupt, rather than connect with, consumers."

Why so? "Because that's the way it has always been, and it's comfy to pretend that poor results are due to wars or consumer confidence and that things will `return to normal' before too long." Only, the wait may be infinitely long. For, `the changes are fundamental and permanent."

To survive, you may need to "slap some creativity into marketing and make it less of a nice-to-have and more of a necessity," advises the book. It takes you into the world of punk marketing, a thinking that recognises "the shift in power to the consumer," and uses it.

Adopt the punk marketing manifesto to save yourself from getting trampled. The manifesto has 15 articles, beginning with this: "Avoid risk and die." In times of change, the greatest risk is to take none at all, explain the authors. "The trick is to take calculated jumps and share them among all stakeholders with your own blend of saucy verve and gusto."

Assumptions are in no way true, so why not ask `why not,' encourages Article 2. "Anything you assume is usually a half-truth or a generalisation that once served a useful purpose but now hinders truly creative solutions." Dove's `campaign for real beauty' is a case in point. It questioned `the fundamental rule' - that women featured for marketing beauty-products must be stick-thin perfect. "The result was a campaign that made women everywhere feel special about not conforming to conventional views of perfection."

Take a strong stand, exhorts Article 3. "Trying to be all things to everyone inevitably results in meaning little to anybody." Deciding what you want your brand to stand for must come from a firm set of well-thought-out beliefs you are prepared to defend on any battleground, insist the authors. "P&G lives by that credo and it works for them."

Article 4 says, "Don't pander." Customers are important but they are not necessarily right, explain the authors. "Let us tell you a little secret: consumers like to be told what to do. They're actually slightly submissive and want a brand to take charge... " As a corollary, what consumers don't like is "being asked what they want." Because they don't know! "Henry Ford said it many years ago and it still holds true: `If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have told me, `a faster horse'.'" Give choices, by all means, but that's different from coming off as being desperate to please everyone - through "incessant price promotions, incentives, and cash-back offers." Distress marketing can make consumers think there's something wrong, so don't.

Give up control, says Article 5. "Consumers now control brands - end of debate. Smart marketers recognise this and embrace it rather than fight the powerful truth." Consumers are more participants than recipients. "No more cheap entertainment in exchange for their attention to what we sell!"

Recommended read for those who would like to live and tell the tale.

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

D. Murali