Seeing the person in the consumer

Especially coming from a brand planner, you may probably find this quite disturbing. But it’s nothing but the Gospel truth. Whenever we view the people as consumers, we embark on one counter intuitive journey.

I can vouch that almost all the briefs I work on, spell out something like this; “We want to target People belonging to SEC A, B and upper C, MHI over 30k, progressive and aspirational.”

The thing is, this covers almost everybody.

And more importantly, they are reduced to just a statistic, a lifeless target. But hey, that’s our target audience.

From the beginning, marketers have been wired to see people as targets. Now that may explain marketing terms like ‘shooting in the dark’ and ‘shotgun approaches’ used in direct marketing.

Why? Because these are nothing but targets.

Here are a few fundamental issues arising from this bad habit. When we look at people as consumers, we have a myopic view of the whole picture. The truth is, a persons’ consumption of a brand does not happen in isolation. It is usually an integral part of his/her life itself.

There is considerable interconnectedness between a particular category consumption and the other things this person does. 

Let me throw you an example. Look at the ‘education’ column of the Sunday papers. I am sure all education institutes eye their potential students the same way, and so, obviously, end up advertising themselves in the same way too.

These institutes look at potential students as school leavers who are trying to further their career by obtaining some degree or other professional qualification. The connection is obvious. Better qualification = better job = brighter prospects. Now, this is a given.

Because every institute holds this myopic view, all of their communications appear almost identical. We could easily interchange their logos and no one will actually notice.

But what if, instead, we take the connection between education and how it empowers the different roles these students will soon start playing? Like for example; how education contributes towards making them better offspring, spouses, car buyers and members of the community.

I am sure people will think of that particular institute as the one which offers a well rounded curriculum with a holistic approach towards education.

It would actually differentiate that institute from the many pages of monotonous clutter. Finally, an institute that actually does a bit more than the given, one that strives to improve the overall quality of life.

What stops us from looking at our ‘target audiences’, aka ‘people’, like this? Being risk averse is one reason.

Although deep inside, we all know that not taking risks is in itself very risky, we still avoid risk. But I want to draw your attention to cognitive psychology, a close cousin of marketing, and particularly, the way we perceive things.

Look at something as universal as the dog. The Filipinos would consider the so called man’s best friend to be man’s best dish more than anything else. It’s their four legged turkey. I have heard horrendous stories of how Filipinos exchange puppies only to re-exchange them as dogs so that they can be slaughtered sans the guilt.

Now you picture those little Chinese-look-alikes as evil, that’s your cultural bias kicking in. Then there’s the gender bias lurking in our perception. Women are likely to see shopping as a game without instructions, especially when coupled with limitless credit lines, or as a social activity connecting both friends and funds.

Previous experience is another aspect that colours our perception. If you have a lot of time on your hands, try watching the same horror movie twice.

Adjusting all these aspects is much harder than you think. Because most often than not, we don’t attempt to perceive things beyond our initial interpretation of them. And even when we do, we tend to see it as reinforcement of our initial interpretation.      

But help is at hand. It’s a bit challenging and requires disciplining your thought process and your way of seeing things. There are three approaches to seeing anything. Whether its consumer behaviour or perceiving anything else for that matter. The first approach is completely useless, and unfortunately, what we do all the time. We look at something and we don’t perceive anything beyond it. It’s just there one minute on your conscious mind and gone the next. 

Then we look at something on its own, or the behaviour of a person with regard to that behaviour alone. It’s like seeing a person being horrible to his folks, quickly dishing out a “horrible” tag and moving on with our lives.

Essentially, in this situation we use the situation itself to assess everything, much like how education institutes see potential recruits.

Then there is a third way of seeing things, which is, seeing behaviour as a web of interconnected actions. Here, we don’t look at anything in isolation. Every action is a piece of a jigsaw puzzle with every new piece making the picture clearer.

It gives us different vantage points to see thing from, make new connections and help us unearth fresh insight, similar to the relationship between education and the different roles of an individual.

This approach of seeing is easier said than done. It needs effort on the part of the perceiver. Effort in searching for new vantage points and making new connections between unrelated actions not previously thought of.

Above all, be interested in ones’ environment and pay attention to people, constantly observing and learning from the surroundings, something that is truly challenging in this age of ample distractions. 

Anyway, happy perceiving!



(The writer is Consumer Strategist at Grant McCann Erickson. Check out his blog www.silentdogs.blogspot.com.)