I often find it amusing how (some) people respond to vegetarianism or veganism. It would be even more amusing if I weren’t vegetarian. Aside from the occasional insinuations (for example, the ‘Real men eat meat’ nonsense) and the (oh, so funny) remarks (‘Of course, I’m not vegetarian. I’m not a rabbit!’), there are moments that get to you more profoundly.

One of those moments occurred to me a couple of days ago, when following a TV report that covered a small child’s death. A 10 month old baby, weighted at 3,5 kg, has allegedly died due to malnutrition. The reporter didn’t have much to go on, but managed to get a line from a neighbor about how the family was nice, the parents well educated, but… You know, they were vegetarian…

No need to say more, apparently.

You do focus groups, bringing in groups of random wolfs. This time the wolfs seem a bit more agitated and hostile. But hey, all is fine – they mostly fight among themselves. Wolfs are friendly and composed, they’re just bad neighbours to each other, right?

You lock up your office and head into the woods. You run into a pack of wolfs and they tear you to pieces. Go figure!?

Possible conclusions:

1) Don’t f___ with wolfs!

2) Studying individuals is not enough! We (often) run in packs.

3) The important stuff happens in the woods. Study behavior in context!

It tells the story of how Kiva inspires its users to lend money to the poor.

An exciting consumption and marketing phenomenon I will be blogging about more in the near future.

Sure, we’ve had children and weirdoes collecting pictures many a times before. But masses of adults of virtually all generations flooding the living rooms, working offices, web pages (and the list goes on and on) with conversation about inconsequential pictures of animals? People setting “exchange rates” on (far from special) stickers? Retired people visiting their former work colleagues to inquire about excess pictures to be pumped into diverse networks of relatives and acquaintances? C’mon, that’s fascinating!

To all those who wander aimlessly in the search of a marketing-related or consumer behavior-related research topic, do you hear the fainting echoes of opportunity calling? To all with an open, curious  mind: There’s much to learn here!

1. There is much to be learned about the social dynamics of informal “markets”. People trade (in various forms) these precious objects. If there ever was a case that brings together purchase rewards, gift giving, face-to-face and virtual trade, sharing and pooling of collectibles, etc. than this is it. How little we know of how all these activities come together; how they reinforce and challenge each other.
2. There is much to be learned about artificial scarcity and how it is resisted by consumers. Sure, you could get the whole collection by spending tons of money at Spar, but most people didn’t. Instead they turned to their relatives and friends, to office water-coolers, to coffee shops, and perhaps most interestingly to the web, to overcome the artificially created scarcity of pictures.     
3. There is much to be learned about value and auxiliary consumption experiences. Why and how did these inconsequential pictures of animals that most collectors don’t really care about become so precious? How (if at all) do they contribute to the original experience of shopping at Spar?
4. There is much to be learned about play. Why is it that so many grownups get to play with Jungle mania? (How does JM bring together diverse generations and what are the different roles that JM bestows on them? Avid collectors, intermediaries, helpers, accomplices, curious observers, people pointing a finger in disbelief? Etc. etc., etc.

And it all started with some stupid stickers!

Most viral hits produce little more than a fleeting look-at-that-cute/funny/wierd/special-effect-packed/nice-song moment.

But sometimes, just sometimes, they touch upon an idea that captures our anxieties and dreams, speaks to our challenges and aspirations.

Heineken’s Entrance could be in the second group, but it’s not. The first clue is that despite the 3+ million views there are few conversation-worthy user comments to the video. The ad makes people feel good, but fails to truly engage. It has a nice feel (music and aesthetic-wise), but a rather flat message. The second clue is that the campaign’s follow-up ads completely failed to connect with the audinece. Apparently there is nothing more to  hear or say, which means the message is somewhat of a dead end.

So why the discrepancy? (lots of attention and feel good and little engagement).  My best guess is that they got the character and the tone right, but failed to come up with a meaningful story. The unpolished, quirky young Bond (Yeah, I know, it’s 007 again) resonates with the recent popularity of indie celebrities. Elitist, polished to perfection, artsy-fartsy, techno-perfect is out! (remember Dove’s real beauty). ‘Vodka Martini, shaken, not stirred’ replaced by beer sounds just about right.

Unfortunately, that just about it. Heineken was not able to truly connect with the cultural shift that makes their remodeled Bond appealing. It has given us no fresh story that might help us better understand or appreciate what is going on in the world. It has failed to help us see the world and ourselves differently. To see a way to make it and ourselves better.

They have the character, but they are missing the story. I hope they find it eventually. Otherwise this will remain just one of the countless viral blips. A perfect challenge for a chief culture officer or a cultural strategist.

Others refuse to play this emotional game, sticking instead with the traditional ‘functional benefit’ approach (the faster, whiter, cheaper, lighter approach). They hold on to the (times and again) disproven myth of consumers as prudent choice makers searching for the optimal functional benefit-cost ratio. They are reassured by the fact that consumers also like to think of themselves in this way. Alas, managerial simplifications and consumers’ subjective self-image perceptions often have little to do with reality.

The ways in which we interact with the world (products, services alike) are far more complex than the emotional or functional benefit ‘theories’ would have you believe. Take SPAR’s Premium brand (SP). Yes, we can prefer SPAR Premium Chips over your ordinary chips because of functional benefits (less salt, more potatoe, better taste). But these ‘benefits’ are not what the product is truly about. If you put the same chips in a unlabeled packaging, it will very likely sell much worse than Premium does. 

An ’emotional benefit’ proponent would point out the positive emotional associations created by SPAR’s advertising, packaging and in-store promotion. Yes, a celebrity like Bond can shore up some positive associations (adventure, luxury, cosmopolitanism, sex-appeal, etc.). But that’s not the full story either. Take the functional benefits out and the associations become phony. A turd embroiled with 007 is still a turd. Wait a minute! SPAR Premium is phony even if you leave the functional benefits in. Can you imagine consumers going ‘Right, Bond using SPAR’s products that makes sense. This truly speaks to me!’ ? I personally can’t buy into the ‘Bond prepares a SPAR Premium meal for his ‘Bond girl’ gimmick’ (she doesn’t even have a name for god’s sake). Don’t get me wrong, I like most of the SP products and the ’affordable luxury’ concept, but something just isn’t right here. 

We need a third view to take this further. Let’s be fair, the celebrity and emotional associations SPAR attempted to stick on SP worked OK (I see a lot of consumer falling for the brand), but not great. Do I see people being proud of buying SP? Nope. Do I see people buying into the ‘Bond goes SP’ story? Nope. Spar did Ok in terms of functionality and emotional branding, but poorly in terms of cultural branding. Not only do marketer need to come up with good functional claims and set up a proper emotional scenery, they need to make their brand resonate with culture (the ideologies of the day and time) as well.

From a cultural perspective the ’affordable luxury’ works mainly because consumers like to create special moments of luxury in their everyday lives. Think of it as a self-reward kind of moment, a small but important moment you can look forward to. This type of luxury is the only kind of true luxury that most of us can afford. The economic crisis made sure that it  is the prefered kind of luxury also for the wealthy and the growing ranks of the ex-wealthy. It’s the prudent kind of luxury that won’t bankrupt you (at least not right away) and won’t expose you to ‘look-at-that-wastful-arrogant -SOB’ remarks and guilt. It’s smart, guilt-less luxury – luxury on discount.

Does Bond get this? Is Bond a smart shopper? Please, he doesn’t even shop. He eats out and couldn’t care less where the money comes (or fails to come) from. ((Do I need to point out that the old Brosnan-kind-of-Bond doesn’t even work for Bond movies anymore?)).  To switch from OK to great, SPAR needs to look for more culturally tunned stories of premium. It’s brand story needs to become less Bond and more McGyver, less celebrity and more, well… us.

Yes, it was a great attention grabber, but the kind of money Brosnan got will always ensure attention. Attention is not enough. It’s what you get to say after people tune in that really makes or breaks a brand. There is no authenticity to the ’007 Chips’. You could of course add humorous spin and retain Bond without making the brand come of as farfetched and artificial (I wish we had an adjective like overmarketingized). Can SPAR come up with a better story to truly capture the spirit of today’s mass luxury? How would you do it?

Sorry for the steroid title, but it must be said that the internet is forcing us to rethink the idea of the individual consumer (or household). As any good network does, the Net reduces the cost of communication and coordination among users.  Add the other info-communication-tech advances and you get trends like collaborative consumption, collective thrift, social _____ (add you noun here).

And then there is Groupon and its thousands (12.000 and counting in the case of China) predecessors and clones. When Google wants to buy a company for $6 billion, you take notice. What can we learn from it? One thing for sure, it is increasingly shortsighted to treat you customer base as a shapeless mass of individual/isolated entities. This simplification (social sterilization) might have worked in the past, but less so today and definitely less so in the future.

I’m not saying the world will suddenly go kibbutz. What I’m saying is that a lot opportunities await those who will be able to think beyond the model of lone consumer. Even when it comes to seemingly straightforward topics like prices.

Here’s a formula: “Value happens, subjectively in context.”

1. Value doesn’t exist in itself, it happens. Value isn’t out there to be found, packaged and shipped. It isn’t in there, in the product. We should stop thinking of value as something that exists independently/objectively, as a simple quality of a product. Products are not valuable in themselves, they become valuable when people interact with them. Value is an experience.
2. Experiences and interactions are always subjective. They are always subject to interpretation. We experience value differently. Yes, there are many institutions that quantify value to make exchanges and transactions easier. For example, the market puts a price on value, but the price shouldn’t be confused with value. The most valuable things are ‘priceless’ and whenever you feel that something is over/under-priced your gut is telling you that value is something else than price/money.
3. Subjective doesn’t mean random. We don’t just independently decide that something is (not) valuable. We learn to interact with products in certain ways (think culture) and our evaluations are always subjected scrutiny. People will say you’re crazy if you think that gold is less valuable than dirt. Different times, different places, different people, things could be… well, different. Value always happens in context (within culture, material constraints, etc.).

This something that people like Hoolbrook, Gröroos, Gummesson, Vargo&Lusch, Prahalad and many others have been saying for years and yet we often fail to appreciate the value of their views on value.

1. I  invite you to see a ‘stand-up-comedy’ talk on value presented last year at TED.

2. Here are some questions to snack on while watching. Where does value come from? How/Why do we distinguish between good (dare I say valuable) value and false value?  What’s wrong with the ‘mainstream’  thinking of value?

More to come…

I would suggest that technology (especially internet)  is changing our relation to content (be it books, music, video, etc.). It is giving us more freedom to comment, remix (see the last video in my previous post) and reclassify existent content and ultimately also to create our own. As we get used to this freedom it tends to spill over into other (offline) areas of our lives. The (passive) consumer is dead. Long live the consumer!

Blair's book in the 'True crime' section

P.S. Bush is supposed to introduce his memoirs in the early days of November. Where would you put that book? Moving it might not be enough in this case…