We have gotten used to the idea that it is always the shepherd that drives the herd forward. But what happens when the herd becomes so powerful that the shepherd is a mere follower, simply positioned ahead?
According to Theodore Levitt, the purpose of a business is to find and keep customers.To a shepherd that translates into finding pasture and keeping his ever-growing flock safe. From a marketing perspective, the marketplace would always present you with opportunities. There shall always be a gap in the market which could be tapped, if branded effectively. You need to study the mentality of your audience and understand their preferences –clearly this omnivore wants his food cooked the way he likes it.Put on your chef’s hat, take out a frying pan, spice up your offering with the right marketing mix to give off an irresistible aroma and taste emanating from your kitchen. Follow the cook-book for that would be your yardstick for consistency – update the recipe as per market-research, for that would be your coupon to repeat purchases.
In a world that’s bound by scarcity, the life of a marketer is no different than the life of a shepherd – they are both nomads searching for resources. The shepherd wants to keep his flock together and healthy which is why he would move about searching for pastures new. The-grass-is-greener-on-the- other-side- would be his mantra, his drive to walk the line; forgoing the comfort of settling down in the process. A marketer too, needs to live life trend-by-trend. The world is constantly changing; new trends come and go just as easy and often as people use hash-tags on twitter. The tide rises just as quickly as it falls, and you need to be ready with your branding surfboard to ride the sea.
Sometimes though, it is a fine line between keeping your audience satisfied and keeping them hooked for more. Sex is biology, sex-appeal is marketing. Timing is everything. Can the audience’s expectations be met right away, or should they be seduced long enough until their pockets are empty? Are their preferences valuable enough to be tapped anyway? What is the opportunity cost?Similarly, for a shepherd it’s not always the fencing that keeps his sheep from running away. It is the promise of the next meal. Just like Pavlov’s experiment on classical conditioning, here too behavior is shaped.In this case though, food becomes stimuli to induce the action of staying put -ultimately becominga persistent reality for the now domesticated animal. This goes on, until the animal cannot be milked any further and is slaughtered for the meat – All in all, a good return on investment.
The rise of Nokia could be a relevant example. Nokia took the cellphone industry by storm and it wasn’t long before it became a household name. Sales were at an all-time high while new models were launched virtually every alternate day. The secret, though, behind Nokia’s success and ever-growing popularity was not because their offering fully satisfied the customer – rather, it was anything but a perfect score. Every new model launched, offered a USP (unique selling point) and yet came with obvious gaps in capability. Sometimes the mobile set lacked on features, on other occasions the aesthetics resembled something that would win a lifetime achievement award in a beauty pageant. However, every time there was just enough to keep the customer wanting more. People were compelled to play along and buy the ‘newest’ model, just to keep up – evidently hooked to an idea they could possibly never have.
To the purist, exploitation of any kind is cruel and unfair.To the capitalist however, it boils down to a survival of the fittest in a dog-eats-dog world.Karma, though, does have something to say on the matter: Pavlov’s dog meets Schrodinger’s cat.Keeping it simple, Pavlov’s dog experiment proposes a way to influence and shape behavior with our actions while the Schrodinger’s Cat experiment explains how our actions shape reality, the ripple effect of our actions on a state of equilibrium. Nature comes with a balance. Good offsets evil, darkness offsets the light, water offsets fire, supply offsets demand, etc. Theshepherd herding his sheep or the marketer influencing consumer behavior make the conscious decision of controllingfreewill, thus creating an imbalance,and thereby forcing nature’s hand. The master-slave relationship takes a bump. The roles are reversed – what appeared to be a functional agreement between the dominant and the submissive starts resembling a clingy relationship between a giant and a leech.
A flight zone is an animal’s personal space. It is wherethe animal can rest and feel unthreatened – A sanctuary. Away from the master and any imminent danger, the flock is left alone with onedominating thought: the forthcoming meal. Herd mentality kicks in as the flock collectively decides to forgo its sense of freedom as long as the shepherd would keep them safe and guide them through their next grazing trip. The shepherd on the other hand, sees his flock in its entirety and realizes his true wealth. It’s a good feeling – clearly, one that inflates his ego. He also experiences a protective instinct to keep his assetssafe, in a place where he can see it. The fear of losing his flockdrives him to plan ahead. The next grassland dictates his next destination even if the existing location suited him personally.Similarly, to a marketer, after managing to create a cult-following with an appealing market offering, his sole job is to satisfy his target market’s existent and future needs.
While the non-conformist would argue that there is no such thing as bad publicity, negative word of mouth can have a devastating effect on a company’s image. Finding new customers is an integral part of Levitt’s business philosophy, true. But the cost of losing a customer would always outweigh the cost of acquiring one on the company’s resume.The market segment, once tapped, gives the marketer the right to project his cult’s identity to the physical world. The market share becomes his true worth, his wealth – here too, the fear of losing his flock drives him to plan ahead, with respect to their wants. Their demand drives him to believe that the grass is indeed greener on the other end; it has to be, even if scarcity says otherwise. The demand-centric mode of doing business grabs hold of the steering-wheel even if the organization’s resource-capabilities suggest a different fork in the road.
Concluding with Nokia’s lifecycle seems fitting here. Once a global powerhouse in cellphone manufacturing, Nokia now finds itself playing catch up as the audience has shifted its attention to smartphones. The Nokia Lumia, a Windows-based smartphone, launched to compete against its Android and iOS counterparts, seems to be a desperate lunge by the Finland-basedcompany to reclaim its past glory.
For you see, the marketer’s branding surfboard not only enabled him to ride the sea, it was the only bit of solid ground under his feet that kept him from drowning in the first place.
The herd starts driving the shepherd.
The writer is a marketing and finance major. He can be reached on Twitter @tayyabrafi
