Perception – Its power and supremacy.

Marketers must be sane enough to agree to the fact that perception is one of the most imperative (if not the most essential) subject matter of consumer behaviour. I constantly seek to be inquisitive with my fellow beings in order to comprehend their behaviour, realizing what would dictate their behaviour is necessarily their perception that has already taken shape in their minds and that is what amazes me. Perception necessarily is an individual’s selection, organisation and his interpretation of a particular stimulus he is exposed to, which eventually dictates his attitude and ultimately his actions (behaviour). Evidently, perception is the cause of a consumer behaving in a particular way and gauging such perceptions is vital that inherently enables marketers to generate stimuli that would make buyers behave in a manner which marketers predicted will happen through effective understanding of their perceptions. As mentioned earlier, I relentlessly dwell on this topic called perception and think about the probable perceptions that my folks in my family and close associates could hold of a range of stuff.

My inevitable mother: My mum has to be the easiest consumer to predict and this prediction does not require in depth analytical interviews with her or questionnaires being filled out by her. It just needs a person to have a half hour chat with her for a couple of times about her buying habits. That is enough for anyone to state that my mum is a very ‘Price sensitive’ consumer and she is so to such an extent that she makes sure she travels 10 kilometres to purchase something as simple and basic as a toothpaste to the City Market place for a price which is slightly lesser than the one available in the neighbourhood store. However, to make use of this lesser price she goes ahead and buys them in bulk, hence making our home look like a wholesale outlet with maximum bulk purchases. Tell her about a new retail store that has opened up nearby and she frowns saying ‘what have they got to offer, I can get you the same at a far lesser price than what they have to offer’ and giggles away.

My quality conscious cousin: I was chatting with two of my cousins (let’s call them cousin 1 and cousin 2) in a wedding that we attended couple of weeks ago, where cousin 1 was talking about his newly bought-used car. Cousin 2 got a little irritated and said ‘what are you boasting off for, all you buy is used stuff’ (which is apparently the truth) and told him off. Then on me being inquisitive of his purchases, he said he would never buy used stuff and always purchase a brand new product delivered from the showroom.

My Brand conscious friend: This guy, you can never get him to enter even the factory outlet of a major brand. He always prefers to consume “branded stuff”. And by branded he means; Levis, Skoda, Tommy Hilfiger, Sony, Puma, etc. Try taking him to Lal-building (an apparel bazaar in Bangalore’s city market) and he will start laughing at you.

What I intend to exemplify with the above instances is that every person has his own perception towards different earthly possessions and would never change these until there is a drastic transformation in his thinking (perception process). Every person sticks to his pre-conceived notions (perceptions) and is reluctant to change them be it - my mother who will never shop in highly-expensive stores, or my cousin who will always buy brand new products, and my friend who will even buy a branded nail-cutter if there ever was one. Marketers need to dig deep into understanding consumers’ perceptions that enrols into an attitude formation that sooner or later results in a purchase.

The philosophy of De-marketing

Well, most marketers would consider this concept of De-marketing to be a devil task and a drastic step to take, especially to those who treat consumers as not just kings but as gods who eventually make the marketers' wallets feel heavier. Is that a fact that all consumers actually swell profits, well the answer in this present era is apparently no – In one of my previous posts I had elucidated on demon consumers and their predominant nature of bargaining, returning of products for a lesser price and selling the same at a profit would not only increase costs for the marketers but also reduce the angel consumer base - who do the exact opposite of what demons do and this (consumers eating away profits) evidently is due to marketers finding it difficult to satisfy both categories of consumers.

The evolution of de-marketing is a solution to this problem along with many other problems that it is intended to decipher. Demarketing strategy is able to be implemented in various forms such as - keeping close attention on time requirements of different customers or clients. Demarketing can be expressed as a rationing supplies by differentiating customers on an equitable basis. The third strategy of demarketing is explained as recommending to customers to utilize a substitute product temporarily in terms of demarketing. The final demarketing strategy is to divert a customer with a spontaneous need or requirement for the item to another customer in which the company or firm has already supplied or provided the item recently and who the customer is unlikely to use the item until a certain period of time in the future.

De-marketing can as well be used as a device to decrease or reduce total demand, or types of demand and uses in relation to a particular stage of supply. Once a firm acknowledges that demarketing is a must, then all the marketing approaches can be applied. Marketing has been suggested as important to the dilemma of decreasing demand as well as to the dilemma of increasing demand. Demarketing should not be classified as mere marketing in the opposite side where the 4P's of the marketing are used to reduce demand. If demarketing is implemented appropriately, then firm will be able to enjoy a viable future and a more secure, predictable short run.

There would exist a thin line between retaining a loyal consumer and loosing one, de-marketing must be given an appropriate shape by marketers not to cross this line and end up loosing the profitable consumers in the struggle of driving away the unprofitable cribbing consumers

Consumer Technographics

An approach that helps firms to clearly understand consumer psychology with regard to internet usage and their inclination towards using such technology, based on which marketers choose to use internet as yet another marketing device intended to communicate, initiate sale, provide customer service, etc. Majorly, the internet way of marketing is based on the fact whether consumers find this medium to be convenient or otherwise, hence classifying two sets of consumer groups namely technology pessimists and technology optimists. You, as a marketer need to go the internet way to market your products only if your target group or at least the majority of your target group falls into the technology optimists group.

Using techno-graphics to target internet consumers

The quick test with 5 questions that centres around your current consumer segment (target), would further classify buyers into:

1. Early adopters: First to go online and conform to technology as an instrument of consumption.

2. Mainstream: These are two years slower than early adopters in moving to online shopping.

3. Laggards: known as sidelined citizens these are the last to consider online transactions.

Some Pleasant Quotes

"I don't know what the key to success is, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone"

Bill Cosby

"For a business not to advertise is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing but no one else does"

Stuart H. Britt, US advertising consultant

"You're headed in the right direction when you realize the customer viewpoint is more important than the company viewpoint. It's more productive to learn from your customers instead of about them."

Going International - Not a walk in the park

Well, I am kinda putting my best efforts in studying for my exams and the course for which I am preparing today is International Marketing. In my lethargic attempt to read, I came across the basic reasons for a firm to consider Internationalization of its operations which quite simply were; Saturation of current product portfolio, increased global competition, need for co-operation among competing firm (an interesting rationale) and internet revolution. Boy! Is that it? If my firm is facing these problems or cites one of these reasons should I jump to the conclusion that my operations need to be globalized, let me rush towards international marketing then. This would be quite the amateurish approach anyone can ascertain, instead conduct proper research as to why, in the first place did your corporation cite these reasons which could be lack of competitive strategies undertaken, improper research activities adapted and really basic flaws that you might have negated.

Even if all these are well addressed, and still one or more of the problems still persist then you need to consider the option of internationalization. Now, why did I say consider is because although global marketing paints a rosy picture in the future for your corporation, there are various issues that need proper direction which if aren’t well heeded, would result in serious repercussions from which firms might find it arduous to recover from. A corporation like star bucks made hasty decisions in globalizing its efforts, and was so keen on entering new markets that it did not realize it needed a slowdown in its pace of such an extension, hence failing to understand the cultural authenticity of country markets like Japan. The company after conducting research on its failure in Japan realised it needed to adapt to Japan’s cultural needs and hence introduce flexible pricing, a product line that was in correlation with Japanese consumer needs and many such alterations.

So do not rush to any decision, wait, adhere to patience, conduct research and then take careful steps and not drastic ones. Watch your step.