Ganesh Harinath

I ran across a really fascinating article on NPR earlier this month, and it really got me thinking about the state of marketing & advertising. More to the point, the article put a finger on a lot of the shifting thematic elements I’ve noticed in advertising over the last couple of weeks, specifically starting in January [i.e. just after Christmas]. For obvious reasons, consumers are becoming increasingly price-sensitive as the M1 influx has precipitously declined [unfortunately, this decline did not lead to an increase in M2, as the effective interest rate has all but denigrated our currency’s value]. In light of this consumer shift, recession marketing has once again reared her ugly head, casting a dull, pallid glow on the pulchritude of the golden arrow.

We’re a little more broke, so the way we buy things has changed. Makes sense to me, and I’m sure to you, too. What is less obvious is the way this will alter consumer behavior for years to come. For any of us who have relatives that survived the Great Depression, we understand that their way of looking at the world is much different than that of their children, and their children’s children. Now we, as progenitors of the current economic milieu, face the market with our own unique perspective. What will be first to fall by the wayside? Will it be taste? Economics says ‘yes’ – we will find substitutable goods to take the place of the items we currently love but can’t fit into our ever-shrinking shoestring budget.

This TV is HD, and has all the bells and whistles I need, but is made by a generic brand; savings to me of 35%.

These crackers are made by my supermarket grocer, but taste enough like the other ones I’ve been enjoying for years; savings to me of 15%.

In fact, the average consumer will begin to nickel and dime themselves out of many goods, finding more economically friendly [i.e. cheaper] alternatives. The challenge to marketers is to increase their brand recognition and perceived accessibility by aligning themselves with what consumers need and want most: in this case, value.

Value means a lot of things to a lot of people. Yet, one of the more convincing of these lexicon entries comes along with the notion of Dignified Deprivation [and just like that, I’ve finally arrived at my titular point]. Companies need to help consumers get what they want, while convincing them they’re not ‘less of a person’ for needing something that costs – in many cases – a nickel or dime less. Generic soap doesn’t mean you care less about your kids and their hygiene, it means you care an awful lot about making sure you can buy them the things that matter when it matters.

Marketers, more than ever before, must now focus on finding out what those things that matter truly are. If price-sensitivity is a given, toward what aspect of the product will consumers find their highest sensitivity? Any good MBA can plot the information on a matrixed 3D graph, but only a strategically minded professional can take the sensitivities of an anxious public and ensure their needs are met, while their egos are not bruised in the process. If this requires a re-tooling of the value proposition to ensure alignment with consumer consciousness, then so be it. My hope is that marketers will begin to use technology, such as social networks and Web 2.0 products, to crowdsource the innately important attributes and focus their efforts accordingly. Will companies succeed? Stay tuned to your local advertising to find out – after all, we all need to enjoy a commercial now and then.

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