Time to change your default settings!
A legacy approach might be stifling you, without you even realising it.Best practices may not be that best(or better) at all. In fact there is scope to abandon best practice as the ‘ practice ‘ as it used to exist has changed altogether.
Your current marketing and customer strategies may unknowingly be rooted in old patterns. It may be time for a change.
The purpose of business—creating a customer—and your customers—at a human level—aren’t changing. That, irrespective of all the tectonic shifts happening around them.
But for many businesses, it’s time to make a change toward having a deep understanding of their true purpose and their customers.
The terms consumer and customer are often used interchangeably but they signify very different relationships. Etymologically, consumer stems from a word that means “one who squanders or wastes,” whereas customer stems from a word meaning “a person with whom one has dealings,” with the implication that it is an ongoing relationship.
As Stanley Marcus, of Neiman Marcus, wrote, “Customers are people; consumers are statistics.”
Marketing isn’t about selling to the customer; that’s a byproduct. As the legendary Peter Drucker observed, “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy.”
It’s the time to break old tendencies. Its the time to be aware, to rebel, to kill old habits and to seek change.
Not changing is a default tendency. Change the default settings!
Nothing else but ONLY only matters!
PM Musings:
In the perennial quest to conform and comply, and trying to beat everyone else doing the same, we happily concede defeat and give up on blazing our own trails. Running the ‘ also ran ‘ race. You might be doing okay by normal standards, but you still feel restless, bored, and limited. True success is playing by your own rules, creating work that no one can replicate. Trying to be the best will limit you to someone else’s definition of success. Don’t be the best, be the only. Only is much better than being the best. Whether you are Mark or Taylor, tailor your own mark. Make competition irrelevant.
Give into ONLYNESS. It’s next to GODLINESS!
ENDS
www.groupisd.com/story
www.brandknewmag.com
The Big Trap for Brands: A Sea of Sameness!
“. It’s no longer exceptional for stuff (anything, everything ) to work. Which means the bar for ” standing out ” has risen dramatically.
![](https://www.sureshdinakaran.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SOS-216x300.jpg)
Does the world need another ad agency?
It’s amazing how a single tap on the space bar can make such a difference.
“Another” is one of those odd English words that have multiple and contradictory meanings. One definition is “being one more in addition to one or more of the same kind,” like having another car payment or eating another piece of pizza (two more things none of us likely need).
But “another” also means “different or distinct from the one first considered.” That puts an entirely different spin on things, and putting a space between the letters underscores the point.
The world rarely needs “another,” but it will always welcome “an other” — particularly in the most mature, crowded and commoditized industries, where sameness leads to staleness.
Time after time, another product or service gets superseded by an other product or service, making our lives more pleasant, more efficient, more productive, or better in a host of additional ways.
Seeking “an other” is a good strategy to keep pace with the inexorable march of creative destruction. In the marketplace, what is, will not always be, and what is to come, has not always been. The task of strategists is to be agents of creation rather than victims of destruction. Our challenge is to pursue the new and unproven even as we preserve the existing and profitable.
Unless you can ensure your company, brand or service is continually and legitimately “an other,” it’ll end up becoming just “another.”
We are tribal by nature. Human beings have evolved in that fashion. Therefore the ‘ herd mentality ‘. Yes, we have heard that before. And this as well. Birds of the same feather. Flocking together. Which leads to the SOS factor: Sea of Sameness. What makes you distinct? What makes you unique? There is comfort in fellowship. There is comfort in companionship. But, the real magic happens outside the comfort zone.
Are you up to the challenge/opportunity? We at ISD Global(https://bit.ly/2riIk7l) are and looking forward to it.
Ends
www.groupisd.com/story
www.brandknewmag.com
The PRomise, The PRospect, The PoweR of Celebrity PRanding!
![](https://www.sureshdinakaran.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SRK-Kalyan-2-300x200.jpg)
![](https://www.sureshdinakaran.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SRK-Kalyan-200x300.jpg)
![](https://www.sureshdinakaran.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SRK-Kalyan-1-1-225x300.jpg)
Wanting to go from Rant to Rave…
Needed: A Bias for Action!
It’s a time to Re-Imagine!
Time to Re Imagine Business! And the time is now. As they say, ” The future is already here, but it is a tad unevenly distributed ‘.
It’s a new world of business. So, isn’t it time to ring out the old and bring in the new? A new mandate has to enter the fray.
Can we shake free of the past? Including(yes definitely) past successes! Can we re imagine an entirely new way of doing business?
Could we stop using these two traditional phrases( I will tell you why):
” Push the envelope “
” Think outside the box “
The problem with both the above(other than their gross overuse) is:
Both suggest that there is an intact envelope or a sturdy box from whose known (and identified borders) we can step out from. But remember:
The envelope is already torn and crumpled..and
The box has been run over by a speeding trailer truck.
So, the task at hand is to:
Think “Weird“, however weird it may sound..be wired for it!
(Re)think ” excellence “
Re-Imagine ” leadership “
Get strange. Did you know that the No 1 source of innovation is ‘ pissed off ‘ people ? People who just cannot tolerate the mundane, the silly, the mediocre that is happening around them. That’s the origin of the best innovation you can ever lay your hands on. So, go ahead and seek pissed off people! HR, are you listening?
Fire the planners. Hire the freaks.
An “excessive cult of the consumer“- ” customer driven” also means being slave to demographics, market research and focus groups. So, ‘listening to customers ‘ might just be the No 1 sin in marketing...
Turn the cliched phrase on its head. ‘The customer is always right‘ to ‘ The customer is always late ‘-
Who wanted Post It Notes? Nobody for a dozen years till 3M ‘ wrote ‘ history and we still keep ‘posting’.
Who wanted Fax Machines? Nobody for the longest time till a ‘ critical mass ‘ of users came along.
Who wanted CDs? Nobody or atleast none of us who had just been through the transformation from phonograph records to tapes. Then the kids started using CDs and the awesome quality of sound made us go Ka-boom!
In the words of Doug Atkin, a partner at Merkley Newman Harty: ” These days you can’t succeed as a company if you’re consumer led-because in a world of constant change, consumers can’t anticipate the next big thing. Companies should be idea-led and consumer-informed”
It’s time to re-imagine. At ISD Global we are constantly trying to be as future ready as possible, driven by the weird, motivated by the untried and fuelled by no fear. To generate ideas that can transform businesses and thereby quality of human life.
Your time starts now. The clock is ticking!
ENDS
www.brandknewmag.com
www.groupisd.com/story
Marketing the new ‘Terms ‘ of endearment
Marketing the New ‘Terms’ of Endearment
Over the years, tried and oft used terms in the world of business and marketing have transcended convention. We seem to be in a perennial state of having to come to terms with these terms. Here is the term sheet on that.
Brand Owners, Advertisers and Marketers were once cosy with ‘ Mass Market ‘. Try and reach the maximum audience numbers through mass media. A lot of the times it was about Spray and Pray. Mass Market transitioned to ‘ Mass Customisation ‘ which went beyond one size fits all to one size fitting some. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science, we are now in an era of the ‘ Customer Segment of One ‘, where one individual as an audience is targeted with high degree of precision and success.
The disclaimers have been turned on its head as well. What used to be common place was a term going as ‘ Caveat Emptor ‘ which essentially was to say buyers beware. The entire onus and risk on buying a product or service was all on the buyer/end user. Now, in an over commoditised world, where we have moved on from push and control to pull and engage, where top down has given way to bottom up marketing, what is evident is ‘ Caveat Venditor ‘, where the accountability and responsibility rests fully on the seller. The wheel has gone a full circle.
Not until long ago, brands and their marketing plans were etched out keeping demographic groups in mind. A pre decided age group with a certain buyer persona was carved out and communication was created to influence and impact that community. The universe has changed dramatically. Brand marketers have now started addressing mindsets which throws conventional wisdom out of the window. As they have now begun to chant, RIP Demographics!
Consumer aspirations have taken a twist as well. Yesteryears we had all marketing and communication created to induce brand ownership. With so much millennial consumption happening, the entire paradigm has now shifted to owning experiences. The new brand mantra for marketers is CeX(Customer Experience) and the City. Ownership is passe, experience is the new aspiration.
Remember those days when the quintessential manna from heaven was ‘ brand loyalty ‘. Coveted, treasured, revered. Loyalty was royalty. In an era of surplus of goods, information, choices, services and a deficit of trust, attention and resources, ‘ customer infidelity ‘ has replaced loyalty. Cheaper, better, faster? Here we shift loyalties!
We were just coming to terms with the ‘ knowledge economy ‘ as it moved on from the ‘ Industrial Economy ‘and before we knew it we were bang in the middle of the ‘sharing/collaborative economy‘. The dust had hardly settled on that and now the entire attention is rooted on the ‘ attention economy ‘. In an age of perennial distraction, attention is the new premium.
Since advent of marketing, and the quest for differentiation, the narrative has revolved around a USP(Unique Selling Proposition). That feature or benefit which makes your brand distinct or unique from other competitors in the eco system.Then came the not so holy communion onslaught- the SOS- Sea of Sameness. Nothing unique, nothing distinct, the herd mentality, the also ran, the me too. Which prompted our research at ISD Global to discover what we have come to label as UFP- Unique Feelings Proposition– where state of the heart is what brands are appealing to win trust, loyalty, mind and wallet space.
Am sure we will have more to chew on as the intersection of consumer behaviour, rapid evolution of technology and the ever changing socio economic landscape will throw up more perspectives that we have to come to terms with. Till then, au revoir.
ENDS
www.groupisd.com/story
www.brandknewmag.com