I am as annoying in complaining about the advertisements in the middle of interesting programs on TV as the ads are in annoying me. Have you ever said to yourself “There is nothing more annoying than a soft drink ad in the middle of my favorite game of cricket or a gripping movie or TV series”. Whenever I see these ads, I swear I will never buy that product. But, when I think about it, ultimately, I think Marketers do manage to “pull a fast one” on me and achieve their purpose by exerting exactly the kind of influence that I think I am wise to. I think I understand why these ads work on most of us.
The market is now flooded with numerous brands. When you go shopping for a product, you will most likely see a whole range of brands that would leave anyone baffled. You know a couple of these brands from TV. Human nature being the way it is, you would like to appear informed. You would want to feel happy about your purchase. You would like to feel that you know yourself best and that you have got the brand that best suits your needs. You would like to go away thinking you have got your money’s worth.
Seeing a brand that you recognize from the TV ads immediately triggers a chain of sometimes conscious and sometimes unconscious reasoning in you. Here is probably how that train of thoughts goes “I have seen the ad for abc and xyz on TV. These brands can’t be that bad if they are being advertised on TV. The ad for abc says the product offers blah-blah-blah and I am looking for blah-blah-blah. Wow! Here’s something that was made for me. This will definitely be a good buy for me”. So, you buy the product and feel happy. At the same, the marketers can’t help but smile and give themselves a tap on their back “Here is another sucker whom we have outsmarted”.
Comments
How is a marketeer different from a road side vegetable vendor. Both are trying to "sell" their product. It so happens, the "marketing" reach of one is much more than the other.
Isn't this exactly similar to the relationship between you and your customer, at some stage in your project cycle? The difference only being the number of people the mass-marketeers tries to reach.
The dynamics at play here is very similar to what happens when the customer stands in front of 2 adjacent shops, one looking neat and sophisticated and the other looking very normal. The customer has no knowledge of the quality of the product in the 2 shops. What will he do?
ShivaM
You are right. Road side vendors will also market themselves. Taking off from your example, you will probably go to the neater shop first. But, if you find products there that are past their sell by date, you wont buy the product from that shop just because it is clean, will you? You will check out the "normal" shop and if that offers a product that's not past its sell by date, you wont hesitate to buy from there.
What I was trying to say in my post is if you have competing products from different brands, say for example, shampoos or moisturizers and you are not price sensitive, which one would you choose to buy and why?