marketing: consumer advocacy

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SOMETIME AGO,a bollywood film was launched with the principles of traditional mass marketing.By survey they try to find out what viewers wanted,the hero was selected on the basis of popularity index.high decibel advertising hit mass media .All is needed was the first set of viewers to come out and declare that it was a complete ‘bakwas’.Movies are not like products-they completely depend on the audience reaction.The writer want to indicate-the power of consumer conversation.This is called consumer advocacy.
Consumer advocacy is proliferated by word of mouth,personal media like SMS,e-mail,social network,etc.
Today before a consumer can realize,he get to know all the detail about a new product,a new restaurant,or a movie.A consumer pay far more importance to the news that comes from the users or from the people they know,compared to the information that comes from the ads.
Consumer advocacy is possibly the most potent and result oriented marketing tool of modern times.But it demands a completely different mindset and approach form the brand owners.
There has to be something inherently interesting about the brand that the consumer can talk about. For generating consumer advocacy ,the brand need to have a point of view.It’s no longer about what people buy,but what they buy into. Brand with a distinct point of view about the social,cultural or even consumption fabric have a much higher chance of generating advocacy.That’s why iphone and Bodyshop does not need much of mass media advertising.
Advocacy calls for an honesty.This is a difficult bid.In India marketing essentially meant pulling a fast one.We claimed Lime in Detergent that didn’t have any.We created ‘claim-level’ ingredients by just putting a ridiculously low amount of it and hammering it in mass media.False claims are likely to create crusaders against that brand.Nike has faced it,wall-mart has faced it.

POWER OF INFLUENCE-
In psychology,there are three way to influence people
1) coercion
2) persuasion
3) contagion


COERCION - coercion refers to the use of force- in marketing term a monopolistic situation.

PERSUASION- persuasion is the use of loglic- this is what most of the marketing and advertising community is used to. Most ads are some form of consumer logic.may be it is betterment of living style or betterment of life.

CONTAGION-it is about exposure.there has to be something in the brand.it may be product , communication or the people behind the brand. So that when people are exposed to it they become carriers of it.this is the most evolved form of marketing and it done well.it can the biggest asset a brand can ever have-consumer advocacy.

in a good time huge marketing campaign and distribution push can help selling brands and lot of the shortcomings of a brand never get exposed.But when the times are not so good,those brand become the first victims.In a recession economy,consumer advocacy can be the saviour.But for that to happen,the brand need to have a stronger social or cultural connect with the consumer and make the consumer feel a part of a larger thing.






Issues raised-
This article raised following issues.
1) what is important mass marketing or consumer advocacy?
2) According to psychology which way to influence people is the best?
3) Why iphone does not need much of mass marketing advertising?

WHAT I LEARNT -

I learnt a product must have some quality so that consumer can talk about it.There has to be something in a brand,it may be product,communication or people behind the brand.
Marketers must use honesty when they marketed a product. False claims about a product only generate short term sales.It is consumer advocacy,that generate sales in long term.