YOU CAN’T get away from it, even at the movies. In most theaters, you now have to sit through 20 minutes or so of commercial messages before the show starts. Then, just as the lights dim, you’re assaulted by a long string of computer-generated images – horses running, volcanoes erupting, boys jumping into lakes – accompanied by Dolby sound.
Is this part of the entertainment? Hardly. These clashing images are the means by which studios and production companies (half a dozen per picture, it seems) now brand themselves.
It must be good for your ego to get your brand onto the big screen, but have any of these honchos ever pondered what this does to the viewer?
In a word, it’s confusing. And confusion causes stress.
That stress is one of the themes of a new book: “Simplicity Market” by Peter Sealey, an adjunct professor of marketing at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. It’s being published this month by Free Press. In a recent interview, Sealey gave us many other examples of marketers running amok.
For example, Coca-Cola (where Sealey worked for several years) added products and packaging variations that made sense at the time but now confuse consumers and channel partners. “A brand manager looked at an opportunity at Costco, and made a unique package configuration,” he said. “And a bottler in the U.K. called and had a particular need for a packaging variation.”
The trouble is that “the consumer doesn’t need 67 models of General Motors cars, and he probably doesn’t need 50 different versions of Coca-Cola Classic. People do need variation – I’m not trying to go back to the Soviet Union in 1960. But let’s rationalize the product offerings. Let’s make our production runs longer and our manufacturing efficiency better, and let’s have more turnover in the product we’re selling.”
Here’s another example. “Do you really know your telecommunications bill is as low as you could have it? You don’t know. It’s so damned complex you can’t figure out what the hell you’re paying.”
The good news is that this is an opportunity for the right marketer. “Somebody’s gonna come out and say, `Wait a minute. I’m going to simplify this for you. I’m going to reduce your stress and say to you, you work with me, and I’ll guarantee you a fair low price, and I will combine all your telecommunications needs in aggregate.'”
The bottom line, according to Sealey? “The marketers who are going to succeed in the 21st century are going to do two primary things: They’re going to simplify the lives of their retail trade partners and consumers, and they’re going to reduce the stress on the part of the consumer.”
We can’t wait.
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