Last week a prominent newspaper broke the news, ‘1 in 4 cars sold in India today has a sunroof’. It also mentioned that in India neither the climate (hot, humid and pollution) is conducive to enjoyment through sunroof nor is itsafe (people have died due to kite strings and low hanging signages). However, in the world of consumers, things that are irrelevant, fictitious, superficial and obvious often make sense, that too phenomenal sense. Marketers know it and enjoy it. Consider the following claims:
- ‘we put silk in our shampoo’
- ‘our refrigerator has PUF’
- ‘made from sun kissed barley and tendered by fresh breeze’
- ‘put a tiger in tank’
Read again, you can’t put a tiger in a tank and silk can not be an ingredient in a shampoo. PUF (Polyurethane foam) is commonly used insulation material and if you grow barley it will be kissed by sun and tendered by breeze. What is so great about these claims? Nothing. But marketers know how human mind works and how it can be exploited.
Anything that is picked and transmitted by sensory organs to the brain, the mind automatically begins to assign meaning to. The stimulus may be sound, color, texture or smell. The operation of brain creating meaning out of these stimuli is perception. Perception is subjective because everyone’s mind contains different set of memories, emotions and learning. So, if a brand names itself as ‘Hexit’, we probably are likely to interpret it as something killing. When the dial of a wrist watch is given big proportions the mind reads it as masculine. You color a shoe pink and it becomes girly.
Marketers are good at leveraging this phenomenon of preexisting amalgam of cognitions, emotions, images and memories. By careful orchestration of brand elements favorable image transformations are achievable.
It’s not all about logic. So why value something which is not of use? The air exposure on Indian roads could lead to serious respiratory problems and sticking your neck out of the sunroof is fraught with risks to life. On top of this the view of the skyline through the top of a car is hardly inspiring. DRL or daytime running lights on cars were invented as a safety measure in countries which experience daytime darkness. This was unique to north American countries to create visibility. But in a country like India with abundant and bright day light there’s hardly a justification for cars to sport DRL.
The meaning resides in the mind : the question is why do customers dole out extra bucks for superfluous and useless
features? It resides in tendency of mind to make sense or look for meaning in everything that it comes in contact with. Neutrality of mind is the highest virtue attainable only by sages. Meaning making works by the process of stimulus generalization and discrimination. Commonality creates assimilation and contrasts create differentiation. Twitter with its new X sign aims to create disassociation with whatever Twitter has been able to create in mind as memory constellation. On the other hand, Maggi with its original yellow and red packaging seeks to tap into its equity and rub it off with other products like Sauce and Masala.
Psycho-social meaning: L’Oréal and other hair color brands have gained tremendously by tapping into the desire of women to be like Western women whose hair color is naturally blonde. The hair color, this way, assumes a meaning beyond chemistry or electromagnetic radiation coated in psychology and sociology. So, hair color ceases to be a means of giving hair a particular shade; instead it becomes a device for psychological transformation and social expression.
Case of DRL and Sunroof: What happens when a car gives feature of sunroof or DRL? The mind rushes to its storehouse to locate something similar. It discovers these features are seen on luxury cars and begins projection of luxury car imagery on to a mid segment car and the magic begins. The selectivity of perception creates partial blindness and car is seen through a select feature. It is a common practice whereby blinders are put on consumer perception. For
instance, the urban non-sporting young expect others to view them through the lens of their Nikes’ and Reeboks’ in line with their perception. BJP as political party expects you to look at the politics through the narrow lens of Hindutva.
It’s about differentiation: in a contested market where competitors inch closer, creating differentiation is essential. Rosser Reeves decades ago coined the term USP or unique selling proposition. Creation of unique feature may be easy but it is useless if not valued by customer. There are two case of differentiation: horizontal (similar products but preference differentiated as is the case with Coke and Pepsi) and vertical (different price points based on quality markers like Columbus and Nike athletic shoes). In this case the feature added is aimed to create differentiated offering from low price versions and charge premium.
Discussion apart, we as human beings are emotional animals. The key to marketing success lies in activating positive emotions though features which can elicit a click and whirr response. Does it happen with you?
MarketingCrow: Welcome to Harsh Verma's (FMS) Blog 