<font color="#FF0033"><b>Guest article</b></font>: Manish Sinha: Us and Them

Us, and them. And after all we’re only ordinary men. Me, and you

Manish Sinha

Bates David Enterprise

April 20

Imagine if your business card said Chief Marketing Producer. Or National Producer. Or Chief Producing Officer. Or Copy Producer. Or Art Producer. Or Research Producer… The word producer is a bit off-putting, isn’t it? Because we don’t just produce! We give shape to stuff. We create brand belief. We imagine new themes, new dreams… Us is a wide variety of people. With different beliefs, skill sets and mind sets.

But, when it comes to them, we paint with one broad brush stroke: consumers. In the marketing/communication game of Us vs Them, we use one word to describe all people who buy stuff/ services/ experiences/ grocery/ hopes/ dreams from us: consumers.

One size/silo fits all. Of course, there are segmentation studies and quali-study nomenclatures, but they all start with the reference point of ‘consumers’. They live to consume. Period.

Isn’t it a bit inhuman? A little degrading? Somewhat wrong? A trifle incomplete? There is with us an entire lexicon created back in the industrial age, even as we ride the information age and are at the gates of the creative age: consumer insight, consumer behaviour, consumer research, consumer loyalty...

And the edifice of our marketing thoughts, strategies and communication is built on this!

I feel nomenclatures shape our world/world-view. Seemingly innocuous labelling affects perceptions, thoughts and behaviour... But stereotyping simplifies. As marketers and communicators, it’s easy to maintain the divide.

Us vs them. Producers (of products, services and communication) and consumers (of marketing and communication produce).

Implicit are the following rules...

1. They are a target audience. Eyeballs, to be precise!

2. We make the rules.

3. We are smarter than them.

4. They are stationary targets. Sitting ducks.

5. They are waiting for our products and communication.

6. We learn about them. Their behaviour. They do not learn about us. Our behaviour.

7. They will be loyal to us, if only we tried harder.

8. They can always be grouped in clusters (driven by media calculations and mathematics) to suit our mass media weaponry.

9. We can change the packaging of our products incrementally. And they will fall for them exponentially.

10. They have an insatiable appetite for hype, half truths and bullshit.

11. If you pray hard, the remote will disappear! Or at least, they won’t use them that often.

12. FGDs (read probing questions and lots of research/ reason) can get us all the answers about them.

13. Digital is a technology. Let’s learn it first. Then we will apply it to them!

14. They love the sound of our voice...

But the tectonic plates of marketing/communication are shifting... The rules of the Us vs. Them game are changing. At first in the digital domain, then in our analogue lives!

1. We are the new target. Of disloyalty. Of cynicism. Often derision.

2. They are making many of the rules. About media. About the use and adoption of technology. We are following them.

3. In many aspects, they are getting smarter than us.

4. They are moving fast. Often, we are the targets. Of their seemingly sudden, unfathomable behaviour!

5. They are customising our products and communication. Often creating and generating content and communication at both small and mega scales!

6. They have learnt many of our tricks. They can now even make a super bowl ad for $12!!

7. Hype and half truths never get their loyalty. Like us, they are loyal to their families and communities and passions, not to bars of soap and toilet paper! Not even to their companies (most of the time). Some of them are loyal to larger goals and belief systems!

8. They are as fragmented as shards of broken glass.

9. Many are saying to us: “When will you change the packaging of your thoughts?”

10. They say to us: “Arrey, when will you ever get it? Why are you MBA types so dumb?”

11. Who needs the remote to escape your ads... Sometimes we don’t even watch TV.

Some of us live in your world and surf in ours. Have you heard of YouTube? Orkut? MySpace? RSS feeds… We are few but ours is a fast growing tribe!

12. FGDs are the ‘gift economy’ for the unemployed (okay, I am exaggerating a bit!!)

13. Digital is not just about technology. It is a lifestyle. A few of them are already living it, although it’s highly unevenly distributed.

14. Many times, they don’t give a f*** about what we have to say!!

In this small but growing open source bazaar of conversations, of people-generated content, a world with zero tolerance for hype and falsehood, it looks as if we must find a new word to replace ‘consumer’.

Because they are exactly like us. They are Us. We are them. They produce. We produce. WOM, buzz, commercial content, web pages, citizen journalism, activism, 30cc commercials…

They, like us, are people with families and stress, kids and budgets. Like some of us, they are money-rich and time-poor.

They are not on this earth for the sole purpose of consumption. They seek authenticity from brands. They want trust from marketers. They want well-told truths from advertising!

A few of them even want to protect the earth and keep it green. They want to laugh and share jokes about big goliath brands. Their loyalties are difficult to get with plastic cards and schemes alone. Yes they want discounts; they like beautiful celebrity images but that doesn’t define them!

They read many of our articles on how to capture eyeballs, how to capture a share of the target audience. And then they trust us even less. They discuss/ rave/ rant in small online communities and niche blogs. Some just shrug their shoulders. Because many of us are not getting it! Even now…

So, if they are a little like us. And we are a lot like them. Should we call this bazaar of buyer-seller conversations P2P (people to people), Friemily (friend and/or family), UnI (you and I)... Any names?

I agree they aren’t the best nomenclature. They are just provocations. Maybe we don’t need a new word. Just a new mind-set will do. To think beyond consumption.

And back to Floyd and the immortal lines…

Us, and them.

And after all we’re only ordinary men.

Me, and you.

God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do.

Forward, he cried from the rear

And the front rank died.

And the general sat and the lines on the map

Moved from side to side.

Black and blue

And who knows which is which and who is who…

(With due apologies to all forms of cinematic and other producers. For the purpose of this article, reference to producer-consumer is in the broad marketing/ communication domain/ sense!)

The writer, Manish Sinha, is vice-president, strategic planning, Brand David Enterprise. You can write to him at mannsinha@gmail.com

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