It was a few years ago when I first read this HBR article on Retromarketing by Stephen Brown which was quite eye-opening.
The premise of this article was based on the fact that marketing folks always keep telling us to mollycoddle our customers and do things like customer care, customer delight, customer is king etc. etc. I agree with Mr. Brown to an extent; Some customers are uninformed and only focus on one attribute on a product, which is mostly price.
Sometimes, they may not really know what they want.
It is true. Marketers have been doing so many brand extensions, line extensions, brand revamps, over-segmentation for so many years that we as customers have been reduced to new depths of indecisiveness. Plus, we’re in a culture that give credence to opinions so we’re an opinionated race, we love to talk about something that we know absolutely nothing about and even worse, we want to be recognized for spouting such drivel.
In any case, I digress, Mr. Brown, in his article, demands that we get back to the age of retromarketing.
So, what is it? Well. Retromarketing shuns all modern marketing principles to the point that it stands everything contrary to today’s marketing philosophies. Why do people still go to used car lots and buy lemons from snake-oil salesmen? Why do we still allow ourselves to be enamored by a good sales pitch? Let’s try to understand this by understanding retroactive marketing more thoroughly.
Exclusivity:
Customers love this. It gives them the sense that they’re fortunate and lucky to be the select few to get a ’special ” product. Harley Davidson does this, Mazda does it with its Miatas, Nintendo did it with their Wiis, Ty Inc. did it with Beanie Babies and Webkinz did it with their ridiculous stuffed animals where they enticed kids with the promise of entering an exclusive club online by using the access code printed on the labels
Secrecy:
A great example of this is Scholastic’s campaigns with Harry Potter. When ‘goblet of fire’ was ready to be released, Scholastic made sure that they held back information about every aspect of the book – there some some deliberate pieces fed to the slobbering press coupled with hints that there weren’t enough copies of the book to go around further increasing demand. Of course by the time the book was released and every Tom, Dick and lemonade stand had it, nobody complained since they had all read the book and had forgotten the mysterious marketing campaign. That being said, we are a race that moves on.
Additionally, we get the secrecy aspect of marketing daily from KFC with the Colonel’s secret recipe, from Coca Cola about their secret formula and Mrs. Fields Cookies about their arcane recipes.
Amplification:
This is the viral part of retromarketing. Use as many inexpensive means as possible to get the message across that the product or experience is something that one has to know about. ‘Snakes on a plane’ is a terrible movie but the buzz that preceded its release led to moviegoers flocking the theartres during its first week. Ditto with ‘The Blair Witch project’ which after weeks of speculation led to it being a blockbuster when it was finally released.
Entertainment:
This is principle number four of retromarketing. Engage, amuse and entertain your customer in the best possible way. I love the Verizon FIOS ads on TV where the Comcast guy is simply hilarious. With this ad, Verizon has reduced Comcast to a caricature of a installation guy who cant be taken seriously. And oh! while people laugh at the ads, they’ll pick up the phone to get FIOS installed. In comparison, Comcast’s rejoinder ‘Don’t buy FIOS’ ads are weak.
Hollywood has learned this part very well when they promote movies online. Right from creating micro sites that promote their movies, to partnering with like-minded partners to promote the movie (if it’s a kids movie, they partner with fast-food chains, entertainment chains etc).
Tricksterism:
I love how Mr. Brown writes about how marketing must deal in tricksterism using tactics like Loki (the Norse God) and Wily Coyote used. The Blair Witch project is another example of tricksterism. Mr. Brown clearly states that he does not advocate that marketers cheat theirs customers by way of this principle, but by using an extra helping of panache and exaggeration to promote something.
The article is quite a read. He also advocates that Marketing is all about fun. It should be fun. Customers know that a car is a mode of transportation, but marketers with promoting a brand engage them in a cycle of seduction and excitement where they make a car to be much more that what it is with claims of mileage, reliability, 0% APR, features, add-ons etc.
He does offer a final caveat. Retromarketing is not for everyone or every product, service or market segment. I personally feel that people do like to be teased and by instinct we tend to crave what is harder to obtain than what is easily available. We still like our macho heroes even though the culture says that today’s man needs to be more in touch with his inner feelings.
Life can be boring sometimes. It’s up to marketers to be entertainers and customers love that (why do you think folks watch the WWE or reality shows even though they’re the lowest form of entertainment?) I’d say that a balance is required from marketing folks: Don’t oversell. People are smarter than we think. Respect that and market your product sensibly. Rewards will follow through.
I’m convinced that customers do not know what they want but they still expect the best in everything. that’s not a problem as it’s awesome to have high standards. The retro-marketing approach is something that Apple does well with its userbase – it sets standards and because the brand is associated with quality and reliability, customers buy whatever they manufacture. Not every business can retro-market especially if they’re playing in a highly competitive market.
MJ, I agree. Retromarketing has risks in today’s environment and it will take a lot of guts to try something like this in today’s traditional marketing processes that most companies have in place.