There seems to be a convergence of events as a result of the economic downturn. The sudden loss of consumer spending, financial downturn and new government actions has led to a rethinking process.
In the old days as marketers we were always looking for a guerilla strategy for marketing. Very few of us had clients or employers that could really drive purchase with paid media. So we learned to do more with less.
Old standbys such as press releases to get your name in the local paper or creating attention to yourself in some other fashion. You had things like Metro Editorial Services which allowed you to write an article on a subject and then release it as news to be picked up by newspapers starved for content. You could generate a ton of awareness for a fraction of what paid ads would cost.
With the advent of websites we have seen at least 3 evolutions: in the early years we had the techie site that looked ugly but had some content and was published by the IT department, the next iteration involved a love affair with flash and your ad agency or marketing department fell in love with “pretty” and now we finally get to the third iteration that is driven by content and searchability.
So we had those tools but the economy went south and the consumer pocketbooks clamped shut. So how was a marketer to react?
In simple terms the recession created a new consumer. This person is value driven. He wants the best value for his dollar. It also created a need for new ways to market inexpensively but effectively.
Chains like Wal-Mart were already well positioned to capture a value driven consumer as were the dollar stores. Target had to find a way to convey to the consumer that they had value as well.
I was at the Lowe’s headquarters around Thanksgiving and the buyer I was meeting with under the gun to reduce inventory by 10%. We could write another blog on how difficult that is but in the course of the conversation we talked about how difficult it was for Lowe’s to adapt to a new consumer. Lowe’s and for that matter Home Depot had spent years pursueing a strategy or getting the consumer to trade up his purchase from OPP (opening price point) to Good to Better to Best.
Suddenly the consumer was running away from best unless it presented a compelling advantage over good. Talk about getting caught with your pants down that is the description I’d use for most US retailers in the 4th quarter of 09.
Years ago a typical consumer would show up at the store and want the employees to educate him/her on the purchase they were about to make. Store help has gone downhill as well as availability of store help to the point that consumers were forced to educate themselves.
Now the consumer has typically done his/her homework on the internet and shows up armed with the intelligence to make an informed purchase. That awareness has only gotten better in this new economy.
They are aggressively shopping price. They want feedback from other consumers and are willing to trade information back and forth to achieve the “ultimate value”. That brings us to social media. For example, I’m on the board of directors for a local Ronald McDonald House. Our Executive Director was pleased with her ability to go to a small town and sell tee shirts at lunch yesterday.
We were talking about the possibility of using facebook or twitter to inform the local residents she was going to be at a certain McDonalds at a certain time. In that way she not only got the ability to sell tee shirts to the unaware consumers that happened to be there but she’d have a bunch of hook’d up consumers that have an afinity for RMHC Charities and would come out to see her.
The possibilities of social media for use in branding is only being understood at a primative level at this point. IMHO it will come to dwarf traditional media for getting a brand known.
