Carpe Diem!
We are in the Golden age of Marketing, but, are Marketers ready?
I need a new microwave oven.
I live alone, its a great way to reheat meals and call it a night. I can easily say I have never had dreams of owning a Panasonic Microwave. A LG microwave may also be great, but both are expensive and I honestly could not care more, so long as I do not get stuck with a really bad microwave.
While perusing Amazon, I also got offered a Faber microwave, which I think is a terrible name for a microwave honestly. There were Bajaj, Usha, Whirlpool, Kaff, even Amazon sells its own microwave. I have honestly never heard of half of these microwave-selling brands and their weird names.
And then, I see Samsung and IFB microwaves.
I have no idea where I’ve seen ads for Samsung and IFB microwaves, but I know I have, somewhere online. My mom also happens to have an IFB microwave. Some Indian chef definitely promoted IFB microwave on their YouTube channel, even though I am not a regular follower.
Here is the golden egg you came for.
I know literally nothing about these brands. I don’t know which country they are from, where they manufacture, what is their brand vision and mission, their brand purpose, or any of the keywords that marketers love to extol about on LinkedIn or Twitter. I could not give a bigger damn about it.
I ‘just’ know enough to choose them.
No marketers sitting inside the offices of IFB will ever be able to attribute my purchase to a specific insert into a YouTube Channel, or a SEO campaign, Amazon Ad campaign, but somehow, their ads collectively worked.
While we create a long arduous customer journey we think our customers do take to reach the milestone, that is buying their product, we forget that people are not linear-thinking, rational beings.
We are mental satisficers, we take mental shortcuts wherever possible.
Customers have ZERO time, ZERO interest and ZERO capacity to understand a brand and what it stands for, but here is the twist, brands are an essential way for customers to navigate the world. Trust me, customers need brands.
A brand gives us reassurance, it gives something to use to explain to ourselves and sometimes others, why we acted the way we did. It gives us that insurance, that something we bought is not, well, crap. It helps us make these decisions rapidly and become satisfied. It is why people will pay a little extra ‘insurance’ to buy that Apple iPhone. They know its a good product. They have seen it.
This means, customers absolutely needs to “know” your brand, but they don’t need to know very much at all, nor do they care to. Customers use advertisements to make vital decisions, but customers also do not care at all what you were talking about in the said advertisment.
This is a BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear and Incomprehensible) world as RC Bhargava of Maruti Suzuki said. Brands have a golden opportunity to be seen as the problem solvers that customers need. Is your brand ready for the golden era?
