Corporate Centered vs. Passion Centered Marketing
21 million strong, and all we need is 1% of the market...
After going through a number of interesting posts from Grant McCraken, I got to one of his older posts written in December 2007 entitled Understanding The Whole Consumer. He mentioned how parts of a consumer’s life and even body were so myopically targeted that the consumer became a specimen disassociated from its natural habitat like a frog in formaldehyde. I can imagine the bad marketer as a clueless scientist: “It looks like the real thing, it technically is the real thing, but why isn’t the frog as green as when we first found it?”
As the day progressed the topic stayed with me and I considered some TV commercials I’ve seen. The worst one has to be the Bioré commercials on in-between skin. Every time I hear the model reciting her lines, I hear a room full of marketers who can’t wait to make their profits off of this population’s ailment, which has been ignored for so long. Now, wanting to become wildly wealthy from a neglected market is not a crime, but having your wants badly translated into a marketing message might as well be a crime! I cringe when that commercial airs, and expect the model to turn around and say, “You are a large market that has been ignored by our research and marketing departments—until now! And now, we will tell you about your in-betweenness so you can make us new revenues.”
Bioré could have done so much better with the campaign. Yes, twenty to thirty year old somethings have skin “in-between” teenager pimples and old lady wrinkles. Technically, I’m in their target market, and I’ve been looking for a product with this kind specialization, but this untapped market is made up of many professional women on the move. They know the basic does-and-don’ts of marketing, they hate bad sales people with “dollar-signs” in their eyes, and they don’t want to be identified by a bunch of giddy marketers as the “new tweens“. Bioré had a live specimen, 21 million strong, but they dropped us in the new-tween formaldehyde. I wonder what that will do to my skin?
One could try to defend Bioré’s approach because it was a TV commercial, and such advertising has to be dumbed down for the masses. However, TV commercials can be done very well. Just take the Discovery Channel‘s I Love The World commercial.
This commercial makes me happy, and I want to check out each of the shows that were highlighted. Yes, I’m a nerd who likes educational based shows, so the message is right up my ally. But still, I don’t like being swept off my feet by most advertising. The truth is that the Discovery Channel did a great job with this clip, and not just because they rhymed arachnids with squids. They took a common, to the masses, camping song and wove in the big why of their business. “The Big Why” is why do you exist and what value do you bring to this planet? They came to the average viewer with hearts in their eyes, not desperate dollar signs. With this approach, they have won the viewership of many, and are awarded the bright, well-earned dollar from many as well.
The second objection Bioré could give is that they are marketing a simple product, a commodity even. I say, no more excuses. Just look at how Dow Chemical sold itself. They turned the most common and boring chemicals into the most desirable and exalted components on earth in The Human Element commercial.
Such great messages can be crafted and such feeling can be transplanted into the hearts of many if a company and its people have a love for life and a passion for the value they bring to the world. Perhaps its not a well crafted message that is missing from the in-between Bioré ads, it’s the love.
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