Attractive Thinking. Chris Radford
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Figure 1.1 Source: 123rf.com; copyright Svetlana Alyuk
Once it is stressful to deal with organisations (think of call centres for banks/phone/broadband) then customers don’t really want to make contact and would rather avoid interactions. The experience of switching is stressful, and customers feel that even if they switch, the new company may be just as bad as the one they left. Customers and providers end up with an uneasy relationship characterised by a reluctant inertia on the part of the customers to switch and providers focused on reducing servicing costs whilst ramping up prices for the customers. This flares up when customers have a frustrating time talking to call centres or chat lines and call-centre staff find themselves unable to help customers due to the constraints and rules they are bound by.
Another characteristic of the extractive approach is the use of marketing programmes where the focus is on up-selling, capturing customers, maximising the profit from each customer. The marketer is like the cowboy with the lasso. These marketing programmes will tend to involve aggressive selling, special offers only available to new customers, complex ‘loyalty’ programmes to buy customer loyalty, pricing designed to confuse customers into spending more than they need such as buy two get one free or bundled tariffs for energy, phone and broadband (Figure 1.2).
Attractive Thinking is different. It is about adding value for customers and seeking to attract more customers with better products rather than extracting value from the customers we already have. The attractive approach does not start with how to sell what we have already got and how to capture or trap customers into buying more stuff. Instead it seeks to understand the customer and find out what needs or problems they have. Then we work out how the business can produce and deliver a solution to that need or problem. This ‘attractive approach’ or ‘value adder approach’ is18 conjured up by this image of the person who is placing the final piece of the jigsaw. They have focused on identifying the shape of the hole in the jigsaw and then built the piece that makes the jigsaw complete. As a result, they are now ready to offer this perfectly shaped piece to the customer, so the customer’s puzzle is now complete (Figure 1.3).
Figure 1.2 Source: Marketoonist.com
The attractive approach to business focuses on designing and building better products that help people solve problems in their day-to-day lives or day-to-day business. Remember that definition of marketing outlined by the Marketing Society ‘to create sustainable growth by understanding, anticipating and satisfying customer need’. This is the ‘attractive approach’ and is in contrast to the ‘extractive approach’ that focuses on how to get the most money from customers. The idea is that our business exists to make something that will solve a problem or address a physical or emotional need for people. This will mean that marketing and selling this ‘something’ will be easier. The marketing and selling job is now just to let people know about it and make it easy to buy. The marketing programmes associated with the ‘value adder’ and the attractive approach are: Advertising and social media to build awareness; incentives to try to experience the product; free sample products; partnerships to reach new audiences; distribution drives to create greater availability; digital that is easy to use and makes your ‘something’ easier to buy.
Figure 1.3 Source: Ayzek (GoGraph)
Mars have become and remain one of the world’s largest privately owned food companies by building and designing brands and products that address specific human needs. All their brands were designed by starting with a need or problem that consumers have and then building products which offer outstanding quality and value for money to address that need. Mars Bar provides an energy boost, Snickers satisfies hunger, Twix accompanies a break, Dolmio makes your favourite Italian food easier to prepare, Maltesers are a chocolate hit without the calories and guilt, Pedigree makes feeding your pets easier. All these brands have had to adapt and modernise over the years as they run up against issues with changing consumer trends and priorities around healthy eating, attitudes to convenience, and intensified competition from other brands and from high-street innovation in cafes, sandwich bars, veterinary practices and home-cooking preferences. However, Mars continually adapt recipes, formats and availability to make sure the product remains a better product and is easy to buy. They make products that address real needs and problems, then the core of their marketing is brand building for awareness and reputation, and distribution and merchandising drives in the retail stores to make the product more visible and easier to buy.
In general, the consumer product giants, Unilever, P&G and Reckitt Benckiser take this kind of approach to building their brands. They seek to offer the best product in the market to satisfy consumer needs, they then can build a brand that has a reputation for doing that. Ariel washing powders and liquids, Cillit Bang cleaners and Dove soaps all deliver products that perform and offer value for money. These branded manufacturers know it is quite easy for their consumers to switch to another product. They also know if the product is not available in one store, their consumers will buy a competitor brand rather than go to another shop to find their preferred brand. They know that product must be easily available and easy to buy. They know they must delight the customer with every purchase and every time they use the product. They know that people can easily forget (lose awareness) of their brand, so awareness and recall is important. Unlike switching a bank account or broadband contract, switching your chocolate bar or soap powder choice is easy and painless and carries little risk. Trying a new product is also easy, painless and has negligible risk. They cannot trap their consumers; they must satisfy and delight them.
Interestingly these businesses have also seen the marketing science evidence (see Chapter 2) that shows that the size of their business and the amount of profit they make directly correlates with the number of customers and consumers that they have on any given day. They understand that market penetration is the biggest driver of profit. They are focused on attracting more customers to build their brands. Other sectors and businesses where this ‘value adder’ or ‘attracting more customers’ approach is prevalent exist in the high street such as coffee bars. Coffee bars are always trying to make their stores and products better. Costa talks about using better coffee beans; Caffè Nero celebrates their baristas; Starbucks focuses on welcoming ambience. Many restaurants, supermarkets and fashion stores take a similar approach, looking to make their offer more attractive, more suited to customer needs and always offering good value for money. These businesses relentlessly pursue better products and service as differentiators to attract more customers. They know they are solving day-to-day problems for everyday people and if their customers spot something better or have too many bad experiences they will try something else.
Industries dominated by value extractors are open to disruption. Several industries that were not delivering value, service and quality have been disrupted. Think about short-haul air travel before the arrival of low-cost carriers. Low-cost airlines such as EasyJet and Ryanair blew open the traditional high-cost approach taken by British Airways, Air France and many national carriers. They did not just attack price and value with low fares, they also focused on making their offer better. Tickets became easier to buy and to exchange. Tickets did not carry a series of complex provisions about return trip dates. We bought a simple ticket for one journey and that was that. The legacy carriers had created a complex system to protect the high charges they levied on frequent business passengers whilst offering some lower fares to leisure passengers. The low-cost carriers removed those barriers completely. However, now Ryanair and EasyJet are the established players, we have seen them adopt some value-extractive approaches in their pricing and marketing.
Unfortunately, train tickets are still like airline tickets used to be and remain