If you Tickle ’em Pink, your day-to-day practices will change and compliance will follow.
Background
Global Data Protection and Privacy laws are reigning in bad corporate behaviour. The old phrase “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile” applies here. As digital arose in the late 1990’s, organizations realized that computers and software on the internet allowed us to collect vast amounts of personal information that would result in us selling more stuff. During this period, organizations believed this data belonged to them and they could do whatever they wanted with it. Stanford’s business professor, Bob Sutton might refer to this as a clusterfuck which includes three main contributors: 1. Illusion, 2. Impatience and 3. Incompetence.
1. Illusion; in this case the illusion was simple; Our corporate behaviour was based on what technology allows us to do, rather than what our customer or prospect would like us to do. In the scurry to sell more stuff for better quarterly shareholder reports and higher executive compensation, we sold our customer out. We threw them under the bus and then backed over them time and time again. Clearly this was an illusion.
2. Impatience; once again those quarterly shareholder reports created urgency. Organizations had to increase sales and reduce costs, so using all the data they could in any way they could sounded like a good idea when you say it fast.
3. Incompetence; this period (late 1990’s through early 2023) saw marketers stand down. Digital Marketing offered ways to connect directly with our customer and our entrenched mass marketing mindset lead us to truly mess that up. Mass marketing mindset means an almost insatiable thirst for “more eyeballs for less money” and most marketers thought digital presented that opportunity. Things moved quickly and marketers went with the flow. In that mad scramble we missed the true opportunity of digital marketing – better customer engagement and loyalty. Our initial execution of digital marketing was a huge failure across all industry sectors and can only be descibed as a clusterfuck.
So here we are today annoying our customers with email spam and clever pop-up ads, frustrating them with cookie banners, creeping them out with re-marketing efforts stalking them across the internet desperately begging for a sale that is unlikely at best.
Misreading the tea leaves
In our rush to sell more stuff cheaper, we threw the basics of marketing out the window acting like they didn’t matter with Digital Marketing, when in fact they have never mattered more. Before this digital revolution we truly valued every consumer touch-point and always respected the individual. We had extensive strategic plans to leave them tickled pink every time we touched them, trusting that when it is time to buy the category of product we sell, they would prefer us – all other things being equal. We have to be priced well. We have to be readily available, convenient and easy to buy.
Again, in our desire to deliver personalized messaging to increase short term sales we lost sight of the wants and the needs of our audience members. We operate based on assumptions like “this person clicked on this link therefore they are a hot lead” when that click could have been accidental. Or worse, they could have just been curious. How many rabbits have you chased down deep rabbit holes online? That on its own is not a buying signal.
Additionally digital marketers forgot (or never knew) that when communicating with the consumer, one can never assume the glass is empty and we simply have to fill it with the right content in order to secure the sale. Most consumer’s “glass” is absolutely overflowing. Thinking all your wonderful new content is making a difference is adding to the illusion. And now we have Generative AI to help increase the quantity of content we can flood the market with. We are not convinced it will improve the quality of the content at this early stage, but one can remain hopeful.
What is Marketing?
People like to buy. They hate being sold. The magic of what we call traditional advertising was; we knew this. Leaving a prospect tickled pink every time they came in contact with our brand or product would lead to more sales than stalking them and beating them into submission. We took a long term view (building a trusted relationship) rather than just next quarter (chasing a sale). Quarterly thinking destroys brands.
To be tickled pink is “to be overcome with happiness and/or amusement about something that’s happened or is about to happen. This charming idiom adds a dash of colour to your expressions of glee and delight, proving that the English language, like life itself, can sometimes be rosy. So, the next time you’re beaming with joy, remember, you’re just tickled pink!”
As a marketer, is our job to tickle ’em pink? If so, we should stop spending dollars and resources to annoy, frustrate, anger or creeping out our potential buyers. Email, re-marketing, digital ads and using personal information are not inherently bad unless they are abused or over-used. Think of your brand’s relationship with a consumer as a piggy bank. Every time you touch a consumer you are either putting a coin in the brand piggy bank (building the relationship) or you are taking one out (chipping away at or weakening the relationship). Short term thinking like most of the digital marketing I am seeing leaves the brand piggy bank empty and leaves marketers wondering why consumers are so fickle and lack the brand loyalty we think they should have. Even worse, we are literally spending to money to drive our customer to our competition.
Perhaps we should slow down. Think our strategies through from all angles – especially from the consumer’s point of view. Marketers of all types have to get back to basics. If you are not sure what those are read Al Ries, Jack Trout, Philip Kotler, Peter Drucker and David Ogilvy.
To quote Philip Kotler
“The art of marketing is the art of brand building..”
According to Peter Drucker, “The aim of marketing is to make selling unnecessary”. It refers to the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.
Said another way, let’s tickle ’em pink and trust they are intelligent enough to know which brand to buy when THEY decide to buy. Treat your customer with respect and stop “being too clever by half ” trying to trick them into buying every time you touch them, so you can make your quarterly sales goals. Get back to brand building and building trust so your consumer can trust you.
We would love to hear your views on the matter – dlackey@newportthomson.com