Client Delight to Consumer Delight

The purpose of a brand is to add value to the life of a consumer. Anything and everything that a brand does should work towards this purpose. And, in return for this value addition to one’s life in a manner better than what other brands do; consumers patronize the brand resulting in increased market share and hence higher value for the stakeholders in the brand/ company.

But then, this is the ideal cycle of value exchange between the consumers and the stakeholders. The connection between these two ends – consumer on one end and stakeholder on the other, is not direct and simplistic. The various players between these two have their own agenda, priorities and compulsions which often vitiate this value exchange.

Nor is the consumer very discerning in the short term to really choose the brand that is the best in value addition. Most of the times, there is not much differentiation in the brand alternatives and hence the choice between brands is based on some very superficial parameters. In such a scenario, either the brand custodians work on re-engineering the brand to build better value than competitors or at least in the short term resort to tactics to enhance their brand choice over the others. It is these latter methods that brands use which often become insensitive to the brand code of “adding value” and drive brand preference even at the risk of irritating, annoying or alienating the consumers. The tragedy is that many a times, in the short term these tactics at the aggregate level do result in value addition for the stakeholders thus encouraging this behavior more and more.

Here, in this note we shall have a closer look at the manifestation of these short term tactics in the realm of advertising and communication.

In the Indian context, the structure of trade favours brands that are "more visible" than their competitors. To a large extent, the consumers also attribute a higher value to brands that are more conspicuous in their advertising. Advertising on certain media or properties does undeniably add more credibility to brands otherwise lesser known. In short, driving brand awareness in itself at times is enough to drive brand preference.

There is no harm in a brand trying to drive awareness; it is the manner of doing so which needs to be reviewed.

Not many of us have been spared of the discomfort caused by brand advertising across media. A newspaper ‘Jacket’ which is a delight for the Clients is the most irritating thing that a reader encounters early in the morning. The ‘half-jacket’ is even more irritating. Yes, these “innovations” are impossible to miss but are also often just taken off and kept away from the main newspaper. The increasing clutter in newspapers has often made us flip pages just because there are too many advertisements on the page. Of course! It is now customary behavior to shake off and drop out all loose inserts from newspapers and magazines before one settles down to read. The ‘text-pushers’, the ‘island ads’, the ‘full page ads’ are all very noticeable but all cause a disruption, an interruption and irritation for the consumer. Could each of these brand interventions have in some way added delight for the consumer instead of irritation?

The situation is not very different in other media. Flipping channels on TV to avoid advertisements is our natural response and a way of saying that “I don’t appreciate your interruption of my television viewing”. Don’t we all hate the ‘aston bands’ and ‘advertising tickers’ or ‘screen pop-ups’ that intrude while we are in the midst of watching our favourite programs?  Verbose and irritating RJs on Radio, the extremely annoying intrusions on websites, the hordes of marketing mailers, EDMs, SMSes, etc are all examples of daily brand intrusions that consumers hate but are a delight for the brand custodians at the Client side.

The sad part is that we, at the communication agencies are party to this state of affairs. During, our studies we are taught of the principle of a ‘Marketing Organization’ and imbibe the merits of ‘Consumer-Delight’ but, in practice succumb to ‘Client-Delight’ instead. Of Course! The Agency and Client, all have valid justifications and compulsions that lead them to the said behavior but, the consumer does not need excuses.. the consumer just wants value addition to his/ her life.

It is critical that Agencies focus on Consumer Delight and develop tools and techniques now to convince Clients of the merit of communication solutions that work towards the brand purpose in a manner that delights the consumer. It is important that all our brand initiatives deliver Brand-Good instead of just focusing on Brand-Speak.

Brand Experience encapsulates each and every facet of the interactions that a brand creates with its consumers. Product consumption is only one of these interactions. The interactions that brands create in media are critical parts of the brand experience and in some categories even more important than the final consumption. If we accept this role that media plays in building brand experiences, only then we will start looking at ‘media as an ingredient’ and not an  add-on used just for short-term promotion of the brand.

It is also critical for us to understand that awareness has a high decay if it is built using just superficial brand exposure but remains un-eroded if it is inculcated by building memorable and pleasant experiences for the consumers. Hence, marketers need to focus on Brand Engagements and achieve a healthy balance between plain brand exposure and value adding brand experiences. 

The onus is on all Brand Custodians to shift the focus from “Client Delight” to “Consumer Delight” and the results will show growth for the brands that do this consistently.