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Who cares who the advertising is for!

November 10th, 2008 Posted in advertising

We advertisers hate to face it, but it’s true – we don’t know shit about the consumer.

Well we may know… but when it comes to describing the people who are most likely to buy our product, we fail miserably.

We describe stereotypes. Not people.

We think ‘youth’ is an ipod-toting, yo-ing, french bearded teenager in shorts-that-run-to-his-ankles.
Of course we could not be more wrong. Surely the youth of the country don’t fall into this category.

Sample this shopping cart that a middle aged, lower middle class family checked out at Shoprite. (accompanied by their 2 young children)

1. 3 Lux soaps
2. 1 pair of brown socks for the kiddo
3. 1 Dove soap
4. 1 pack Kamasutra (x20)
5. 1 Gatorade
6. 2 Amul Kool’s
and more…

Now for the life of me I’d have never figured

  • They’d prefer a Kamasutra over the more mildly advertised Moods
  • That the lady would refuse her daughter a small pack of pencils but splurge on a much more expensive Dove soap presumably for herself
  • That they’d be the sorts to buy Gatorade (what with their kids not having any say in the purchase process, from what I witnessed)

So maybe we ought to focus more on making our ads more appealing rather than spending too much time defining that ideal target consumer. Because there sure as hell isn’t one.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 3:55 am and is filed under advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
  • s4ur4bh

    POssibly one off incident .. ?

    In a simialr watching experiment that I did, I could see that ladies bought what her kids liked. Obvisouly it wasnt pencils and soaps .. !

    And that larger issue of targeting that you are talking about, glad there are more marketers thinking like. At my workplace we have moved away from tradtiional targeting and segmenting.

    P.S.: Kamasutra over Moods is an interesting observation. That too a pack of 20. ;P

  • Kapil

    I couldn’t agree more when u say we don’t know the consumer. Especially sitting in Mumbai we have a very type-cast mindset of the consumers across the country. A few research trips across the country have helped me change my perceptions of what they think, do and feel.

    On a constant thirst for understanding them I try and observe people at malls, cinema halls and even gardens on what brands to they talk about, how do they make purchase decisions and how their peers are influencing them.

  • Sonal Jhuj

    @ s4ur4bh & Kapil: at every agency people try and break out of the typical TG definition.

    I even attended a conference where people debated the way forward for customer segmentation. But I returned quite confused :)

  • Kanishk

    Dear Sonal,

    You do us proud. Always. Will tag this post soon. Congrats on all the shortlists. Any idea what happed after though?

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