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December 23, 2010
Wanted: Vice President - Experience Marketing
Dead or Alive: How Would You Rate Your Customer Service
The Customer Charter of Rights
Things They Don’t Teach Business Students
Marketing today is boring, lazy and lacks imagination. Probably 95% of all marketing activity is spent flogging products to mass markets. So is the rest of the herd. Sameness proliferates. Undifferentiation happens. Corners are rounded to try and satisfy everyone with a bland result.
Product myopia is the result of a supply-minded view. Marketers are infatuated with the capabilities of what they produce. The coolness of their technology. The functionality of the thing.
The problem is, with virtually everyone follwing this marketing prescription, no organization achieves the exhalted position of DiSTINCTION, UnFORGETTABILITY, UnIQUENESS, GaSPWORTHINESS and ReMARKABILITY. Consumers see a blur of offerings and capabilities with no one standing out from the herd. VALUE is a spoken word with no substance. It’s all about the “iron” of production. The secret desires of the fan are lost in the flurry of Product Management activity to ship the product.
We need to intervene and change the course of Marketing. People buy when they are Happy (thanks Tony Hsieh of Zappos for his thoughtful book “Delivering Happiness”). Tangible goods don’t create long term happiness. If what-is-promised is delivered in terms of functionality consumers rate the product a ‘C’. No adulation and loyalty is produced. Happiness wanes and disappears into the feature cloud.
People remember EXPERIENCES. They FEEL experiences. They talk to others about experiences. They buy repeatedly on experiences. They are happier when they are in a memorable experience. Not rocket science. So why don’t Marketers listen? Because we are a “push” enterprise society. But it has to change.
The new world marketing MUST focus on creating Dazzling ExPERIENCES for their fans. Where feelings reign supreme. Where emotion rules. Where marketing success is measures by how blown away the customer was with the Experience Offer rather than how many sold.
We have a long way to go. Marketing needs the Experience Virus, or rather leaders need to get with the program! Lets add Experience Managers to the marketing organization to be held accountable to create Offers that crystallize high emotion experiences based on the Secrets learned about their high-value fans.
Cheers,
Roy
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Posted 12.23.10 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (1) | Leave a Comment
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Roy,
As you know, I work within the grocery industry. Let me clarify that a bit - I work within the independent grocery industry. We battle against the likes of Walmart and Kroger every single day.
One tool we put in place a few years back is the event coordinator. We hired or promoted individuals in many of our corporate owned stores to create and manage events. They are also responsible for other types of community involvement (i.e., charities, school programs, etc.).
The program is far from perfect but in the stores where our event coordinators have put in a ton of effort, they are making a huge difference.
As always, your writing and observations are spot on. Keep up the great work and have a wonderful new year.
Jason
Comment by Jason on December 24, 2010 at 5:26 am.
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