Marketers Scramble to Chase Evolving Consumers

Are consumers getting weirder?

No, seriously. We know that technology has given everyone who has access the ability to shape their own reality: determining the inputs and the desired outputs. So, it is within the realm of reason to posit that people have done what they always do when they have a choice: take it to the illogical extreme.

This is by no means a bad thing. At least theoretically. It encourages experimentation and creativity. It stimulates communication, debate and cross-fertilization (of ideas). Through feedback, it offers those who are doing the selling to actually learn more about what customers do and might want. In short, it opens possibilities.

There's just one little thing about this, however. To benefit from it you have to be able to suspend your reality - your budget, your assumptions about what's 'right,' your world view - and embrace theirs. And, as any marketer who has to make a living doing this will tell you, this journey can take you on some really strange rides to some really bizarre places.

But hey, there is money to be made and service to be provided and maybe even lives to be improved. You just have to be able to hang on long enough to figure out where you fit in their world. JL

Stuart Elliott reports in the New York Times:

Marketers must acknowledge they are operating in “a new era, a customer era,” one in which “the consumer is in control” and decides what hits or misses.

THE senior executives who spoke at a major marketing conference seemed to be auditioning for a reality show called “Extreme Makeover: Corporate Edition.”

“We talk around the world, ‘We need to be bold, be disruptive,’ ” said Joseph V. Tripodi, the marketing chief for Coca-Cola.

The executives, appearing during the annual conference of the Association of National Advertisers, urged their peers to recognize that the pace and scope of technological and societal changes — described as “crazy” in two presentations — required what one speaker called a “constant reinvention” of marketing.

The stakes are high enough, some suggested, that the need to make over marketing may be a matter of life and death — at least, perhaps, when it comes to careers. “You either innovate or die,” said Roger Adams, the chief marketing officer at the United Services Automobile Association.

John Costello, the president for global marketing and innovation at the Dunkin’ Brands Group, advocated providing consumers with “a real clear point of product differentiation” by declaring, “Differentiate or die.”

And Stephen Quinn, the executive vice president and chief marketing officer at the Walmart U.S. division of Wal-Mart Stores, held up a copy of the current issue of ANA Magazine, which depicts on its cover a chameleon beside the headline, “Change or Die.”

“We as marketers have never had to face this before,” Mr. Quinn said, particularly against a backdrop of “an economy that’s not that great.”

He referred to the huge popularity of the South Korean singer Psy — “There is not a marketer in this room good enough to engineer this” — and the TV series “Duck Dynasty” — “We sell hundreds of millions of dollars of ‘Duck Dynasty’ merchandise.”

“This is a painful transition for us,” Mr. Quinn said, “but it is going to make everyone in this room customer-centric.”

Joseph V. Tripodi, the executive vice president and chief marketing and commercial officer at the Coca-Cola Company, discussed how risk-taking must become second nature, citing the “big, hairy, audacious goal” his company adopted in 2010, under the rubric of Vision 2020, to more than double revenue in a decade.

Among other recent risky business decisions, Mr. Tripodi listed the introduction in Argentina of a soft drink named Coca-Cola Life, which mixes sugar and stevia and is sold in a recyclable bottle, made with plant material, bearing a green label rather than the Coke brand’s familiar red one. “It’s like playing with the crown jewels,” he said, “but we’re encouraged by the results early on.”

With so many consumers engaging with companies, and one another, through social media sites like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter, marketers should consider “provocations,” which generate responses that are “shared broadly,” Mr. Tripodi said.

“We talk around the world, ‘We need to be bold, be disruptive,’ ” he added, offering as examples an effort that encouraged Indians and Pakistanis to connect with one another through interactive Coca-Cola Small World vending machines and a commercial that explained why the company sponsored sporting events like the Olympics.

Beth Comstock, the senior vice president and chief marketing officer at the General Electric Company, took a long-term perspective — portraying Thomas A. Edison, a founder of G.E., as “the Steve Jobs of his day” — in offering “some lessons learned as we try to navigate the change.”

“Know yourself,” she advised, adding: “At G.E., we’re not going to be Facebook. We’re not going to be Apple. We’re pretty cool with what we are.”

And what is that? “We have embraced our geeky side,” Ms. Comstock said. “We’re geeky, and we’re proud of it.” She provided examples of how “sci fi goes to sci real” in social media that include Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine and YouTube through initiatives with names like “Datalandia, the small town saved by Big Data,” “factory flyovers,” “140 things we made today” and “six-second science fairs.”

Mr. Costello of Dunkin’ Brands warned that “in the crazy, ever-changing world we face,” where “marketing has become very, very complicated,” it has become “easy to get caught up in trying to do everything.”

Rather, it is important to “confront reality,” he said, adding, “Marketers tend to be optimists, but you know, hope is not a strategy.”

For Dunkin’ Donuts stores, Mr. Costello said, a decision was made to promote differentiation with a campaign, “America runs on Dunkin’, ” that presents the brand’s coffee products as “how everyday folks who keep America running keep themselves running every day.”

Although “ ‘Time to make the donuts’ was an iconic campaign” for Dunkin’ Donuts for decades, Mr. Costello said, executives realized that “coffee was the future.”

And reflecting how “change has become the norm,” he added, the company plans to introduce new commercials on Monday with a social-media focus. The spots end with consumers proclaiming, “Hashtag my Dunkin’,” which appears on screen, in Twitter-friendly fashion, as “#mydunkin.”