Just because we can…
By: Ann Marie Boyle
Tags: Brand Loyalty, Values, Customer Engagement, Quality, Marketing

Just because we can…

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash

I’ve just ordered a new microwave oven. The choice took most of the afternoon. No sooner did I google “Best Microwave Oven” then I was bombarded with messages aimed at making the microwave a self-actualising choice rather than a functional one.

Did I want a combi-oven or a grill? Do I need presets? Buttons or a dial? How big should it be? Which brand, what cost? How powerful, built-in or freestanding? Do I need an internal light, mirrored door, Scandi- styling or a fashionable copper finish?

Well done all you marketers, but in truth, I just need a quick way to bake potatoes and heat up cold mugs of coffee.

We see this drive to differentiate, to offer choice — bigger, better, faster, more exciting, more individual — everywhere we look. To borrow the line from Jurassic Park, marketing departments, have been “so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should”.

A recent article by Stephen Colegrave, former marketing director of Saatchi and Saatchi (We must kill marketing before it kills us, Byline Times 2020), blames our overconsumption on the rise of marketing. It is marketing that has persuaded us to buy items that “we didn’t even know we wanted” and that the answers cannot be found in simply swapping one form of consumption to another, more ethical one.

Further, built-in obsolescence rightly comes in for Colegrave’s attack. “The most insidious part of our marketing culture is the default position of buying something new instead of repairing and restoring what we already have. Here, research and development and manufacturing departments have been captured and controlled by marketing.”

But is marketing really to blame here? Call me defensive or even idealistic, but this is not what I remember from my marketing classes. Philip Kotler, the ‘Father of Modern Marketing’ wrote:

“Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. Marketing is the art of creating genuine customer value. It is the art of helping your customer become better off. The marketer’s watchwords are quality, service, and value.”

I recently snapped the blade on my lawnmower. It’s a quality brand but it is the second time in as many years that it has had a fault. Instead of thinking it a shoddy product, the ease with which I was able to source and carry out a repair (at a fraction of the cost of a new machine) has meant my image of the brand has improved not deteriorated. The brand has delivered the quality, service and value of which Kotler speaks.

Too often though, these qualities are added as a response to customer dissatisfaction or as a regulatory imperative. A business model where quality, service and value are built into the proposition from the outset may be the marketer’s way forward. A model where:

· the ability for customers themselves to repair or customise becomes a priority for design.

· service and spares departments are revenue-generating functions and marketed in their own right.

· training is intrinsic to the product offer: teaching and accrediting repair skills, or how to be a more expert user.

The current political, social and economic conditions, with issues of rising inequality, homelessness, inadequate waste management and climate change, have made many consumers question and indeed alter their spending habits.

The rise of packaging-free shops, reduction in plastic bag usage and plastic straws, bans on single-use water bottles and takeout coffee cups have shown there is a real consumer demand for companies to produce and supply us differently.

And governments are taking this seriously too. New ‘right to repair’ rules will come into force in the EU next year that will compel manufacturers to provide parts for certain appliances to professional repairers. There are plans to extend this to phones and tablets as well. With critics complaining that the legislation doesn’t go far enough, we are likely to see more such schemes in future.

Today’s marketers might offer less choice with fewer products, but instead build business on real customer need — engagement, satisfaction and loyalty. Consumers gain products they cherish, receive service that they appreciate and develop skills they can be proud of.

Today’s consumers need marketers to be mindful of their diminishing resources whether that’s the time it takes to choose a new microwave, the cost of replacing our stuff or indeed the vanishing resources of our planet.

If marketers can create quality, provide value and offer service, we will all be better off.