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Interesting opinion piece by John Little on FM's ADFOCUS

A marketing colleague who has just opened an independent consultancy for SME's in the Western Cape has written this interesting opinion piece on the psychology of marketing. It considers human behaviour as a means to understanding the rationale and motivation behind the actions in order to create a product or service with a message that will add value and ultimately enrich.
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“We help you to help yourself” – the mantra of the psychologist. A means through which human beings are able to solve their own problems and manage the challenges they face. To come out the other side better off for having interacted with them.

"In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?”
- Carl Rogers (A founder of Humanistic Psychology).

Relationships as platforms that benefit people
If marketing is about building meaningful relationships between brands and people and if meaningful relationships are those through which human beings are able to grow and benefit, then the underlying foundation of all good marketing is genuine care for humans and a desire to understand them better so that we can build strong relationships that benefit them.

To do so, every single marketer needs to start by understanding human behaviour better. How can we help human beings, if we don’t spend time getting to know them? As marketers we are real people with real fears, needs, desires and aspirations. How much time do you spend analysing your own behaviour? Next time you are at a store shelf, consider where your eye travels. Why did you pick the red tissue box over the blue? Why did you start shopping up the left side of the store and not the right? Why did you choose a basket and not a trolley? Why did you pick that store? Remember, however, that your own perspective is not the only one and it is for this reason that we must seek out the views of others, either formally through established researched methods or informally through less structured means.  

Winston Churchill once said, "Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must first believe.” Become more self aware, it’s the start of understanding human behaviour.
To begin understanding how humans are motivated, we can borrow a few of Sigmund Freud’s learning’s and his psychoanalytic approach. Beneath every need or behavior, are motivators that are seated in our subconscious minds. To begin to understand what these motivators are, we need to ask the question “Why?”. 

Why do people buy stain remover and is it as simple as their need to remove stains? Or could it be that they are motivated by the need to feel confident, wearing clothes that look good so they can feel good? Or possibly they are motivated by time and the need to spend less of it cleaning and more of it living?

As marketers, if we look at human behaviour with a “Why?” lens we begin to understand the underlying motives for behaviour, enabling us to connect with human beings on a much deeper, more subconscious level. It is because of a real understanding of what motivates their customers, that many small companies have become successful in spite of having no marketing experience or formal marketing efforts. There is very often a passionate founder who understands and believes in an inherent human truth and has been marketing to this subconscious need all along, albeit with less sophisticated tools. It is by asking “Why” that we gain the insights with which to build a sound strategy for our brand.

If we scratch a little at the surface of human motivators, we discover a set of even deeper forces at play – the values and beliefs that exist in every human being. It is these values and beliefs that influence how we think and are expressed through our everyday behaviour.  It is on this premise that the model of Spiral Dynamics was built as it examines how human beliefs and values act as filters through which people think and are indirectly expressed in the way they behave (and consume). As marketers we need to understand and identify these thinking filters in order to know why people behave the way they do.

An individual’s ethical standpoint and belief in their own personal ability to make a difference will likely influence their adoption of “Green” practices and whether they lead the trend or follow it.

Marketing to the mind – the early days:
In the days of Edward Bernays (Sigmund Freud’s American nephew), the discovery of the workings of the subconscious mind was put to somewhat exploitative use to manipulate consumers into thinking they needed something they didn’t so that big American corporates could sell more products and services. Bernays did this very successfully in the early 1900’s and many have described him as the “godfather” of advertising and public relations. One better known example was his ability to significantly increase the number of American female smokers by positioning cigarettes as “torches of freedom”, cigarettes began to represent female empowerment and every woman wanted one! Trouble is, he thought that marketers could control consumers by tapping into their subconscious desires and manipulating these to the benefit of the big business. He has been quoted as saying: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

Fortunately things have changed in the past 100 years and the pace of this change rapidly increasing as consumers take control and start to co-create brands through more reciprocal and interactive relationships – we are seeing the next phase in the evolution of marketing emerge:

Informing -> Controlling -> persuading 
-> supporting (platforms that benefit)

Good marketing today is not about manipulating. Good marketing will leave consumers and brands better off for having connected with one another. Brands that support consumers by enabling them to improve themselves and their lives because of their interaction with the brand are those that will build long term, meaningful relationships with their consumers. These brands become active platforms, because it is through the brand that people benefit.

As modern day marketers, we do not exist to convince consumers they need stuff they don’t. Today we need to connect by understanding people better, to really care about them and to add true value to their lives.  

As marketers, we are serving people. Ask yourself - what is your personal marketing mantra and are you adding true value to peoples’ lives?  

Written by Colleen Funkey, director, Funkey Brands

A nice initiative - I'm flying my flag today.

I admit it. I am a Twitter newbie and still navigating my way around this particular social media platform - only yesterday my very online savvy husband explained with a good deal of patience what a hash tag is. In case you're also not sure, hash tags are inserted in front of words in Twitter conversations to make them searchable - rather clever and a quick way to access and listen to live conversations about products, brands, events or anything that interests you.

I really became hooked during the SWC - I found it more interesting to follow soccer commentary from fellow Tweeters than the commentators themselves, and it also proved to be extremely useful if I wasn't near a television or radio at the time! The fact that we can choose to listen to each other rather than outside mediums is a sign that the social media phenomenon has tipped the scales in a huge way towards citizen journalism. Traditional media influence as we know it has shifted and as PR's it's imperative that we're aware of the influence of social media and embrace it, or risk being left behind.

Back to Twitter, as a recently joined member of the Twitterhood I found this post by Philip van Zyl interesting as well as entertaining - a few ground rules to bear in mind perhaps?

So where was I the morning after the close of a highly successful SWC campaign? Ironically at Nederburg in Paarl, the home of Fifa's official wine of the 2010 tournament, at 7am, with the temperature gauge in the car registering zero degrees.

Beautiful 2010 displays greeted me in the sales and conference centre and were a wistful reminder of the past month, which, looking back, seemed to pass far too quickly in a haze of colourful, completely Afrocentric soccer activity – a distinctly successful PR campaign with the vuvuzela as its unique angle that cast this country firmly into the international spotlight.
And so, in the aftermath of Footie 2010, a chilly morning in Paarl greeted various representatives from the wine media fraternity, who staved off the frost with a tasting of approximately 50 wines across the selection on offer at this year's 36th Nederburg Auction.
In a fitting tribute to the auction's heritage, which showcased just 15 wines in 1975, several very rare old vintages are included in the mix for buyers this year. Media were afforded the opportunity to sample a few of these gems, including a Chateau Libertas 1967, which Neil Pendock summed up as a "fine old Burgundy". Former Wine magazine editor Christian Eedes gave Zonnebloem's 1974 Shiraz a score of 18 out of 20, while the older Noble Late Harvests found favour with Beeld's Nonnie Dedekind. She described the Nederburg Eminence and Edelkeur wines as the 'vuvuzela of Nederburg'.
Comments from other media guests about the high quality, rarity and standard of this year's wines lead me to believe that this year's offering of 162 items will hopefully do well under Anthony Barne's hammer on Sept 3 and 4 – perhaps also thanks in part to a bit of soccer 'gees'?

We are thrilled to be working with Diale and Malmsey Rangaka of M'hudi Wines.

This unique family-owned wine estate, which derives its name from the Setswana word "Mohudi", meaning "harvester", was recently the recipient of the 2010 Emerging Tourism Entrepreneur of the Year Award (ETEYA), which rewards outstanding black tourism entrepreneurs.

M'hudi Wines offers a distincly Afrocentric experience through wine tours, small events and conferencing, wine workshops and tastings. They also focus on wine export - current destinations include the United Kingdom (Marks & Spencer), 42 states in the United States and Switzerland.

Take five minutes to watch the You Tube video on their website, which summarises their journey and experiences, with commentary from Jeff Grier, very aptly.

Look forward to taking on the challenge of growing M'hudi's profile together with this very dynamic and driven family.

For wine lovers - a useful guide to some of the current and upcoming wine events in and around Cape Town on Diana Procter's blog

Check out this video of the MiX Telematics Stellenbosch staff doing the Diski Dance at the Route 33 Amazing Race.

Read this on Seth Godin's blog - a nice, simple mantra for your business and personal life:

 

The number of people you need to ask for permission keeps going down:

1. Go, make something happen.

2. Do work you're proud of.

3. Treat people with respect.

4. Make big promises and keep them.

5. Ship it out the door.

When in doubt, see #1.

Check out this link for achieving gorgeous round eyes using Jane Iredale makeup - it really works:

http://twurl.nl/ogdpnp

 

Farm workers at Hartebeeskraal in Paarl enjoyed a play put on by the Africa Centre for HIV/AIDS Management yesterday. A division of Stellenbosch University, the Africa Centre has developed the play in conjunction with the Farm Health Project, an initiative run by the Stellenbosch Hospice that aims to promote access to healthcare those who live and work on farms. Called "Lucky the Hero", the play highlights the dangers of HIV/AIDS, how it is spread, how it can be be prevented and how to manage the illness if you test positive. After the play workers are offered an opportunity to be tested for HIV, as well as other health issues such as high blood pressure and TB. The service is completely free of charge and from what I saw yesterday, run and managed extremely efficiently by a team of dedicated people who are wholly committed to uplifting and improving the lives of farm workers in the winelands area from a health and health awareness perspective.

Selection tastings of the 36th Nederburg Auction took place recently at Oude Libertas, Stellenbosch. Members of the panel comprised well-known winemakers, Cape Wine Masters and wine enthusiasts, including Margaret Fundira, Business Manager of Anchor Yeast that tasted the Chardonnay and Red Blend category.

The final wine line-up results will be released shortly. 

jane iredale SA is on board as the official make up sponsor for this year's Miss Earth SA. The concept store proudly played host to the CT leg of the castings yesterday - local brand ambassador Michelle Mountain joined the panel of judges in interviewing some gorgeous girls. Green is definitely beautiful!