In discussions of childhood and even in those of youth and even in those of the elderly on topics such as football or politics, it is very common to find an argument such as "almost", we almost won, we almost arrived, that is almost the color. Typical rational when the interlocutor or the speaker (that is, ourselves) needs to justify that something was not done or was not fulfilled, in the case of infants and young people it is usually the perfect excuse for not accepting a sports or ideological defeat and in general In the business field, a very useful resource to hide in many cases mediocre resignations to unfulfilled goals or objectives, “we almost won the tender”, “we almost met the budget” etc. etc.
From my “Just In Case” trunk (see my previous post) I have compiled some interesting images in the following presentation
After seeing these visual exercises, it is worth reflecting on the things that seem… but are not, those things that distort reality and that most of the time put us in doubt about a particular version.
So let's look at some marketing and management situations that “seem…. But they are not"
THE MODELS OF AUTOMOBILES
Let's start with a strategy implemented a few years ago by the automotive industry to encourage the sale of its units, especially when it comes to model changes.
In this scheme, the industry in question lost track of time and places buyers on an equal footing, when they intend to sell us their new car model with the chronology of the following year when we are barely still going through the sixth or seventh month of this year. In current terms we can already buy 2011 models at this point in 2010, as a communication strategy it can look attractive and I believe that if it has not been changed and better if it is imitated by other brands it is that it has a valid function.
But in addition to being a creative resource that works on "credit", that is to say, anticipating borrowed resources for the following year, something like eating dinner for lunch and then waiting for lunch to see what comes to mind, or in business terms draw on the budget of the following year to support the strategies of the present. It also corresponds to the generation of a false reality for the consumer, when reaching the moment of reselling the car we must give forced explanations, which is a 2011 model, but bought in 2010, which has more average mileage than the one corresponding to it per model because it's 2011, but bought in 2010, etc. etc.
If this industry continues with this model in the future, we will not know what the age, actual use, depreciation, mileage and other characteristics of a vehicle really are. In addition, you must implement another scheme to identify the new models of the units.
In essence our vehicle purchased in these conditions "Looks… But It Is Not".
THE NEWSPAPER ON SUNDAY ON SATURDAY
According to my accounts, the publishing industry directly imitated the automotive industry in the scheme of strategies that creatively seemed novel but that as said for the auto industry are nothing more than borrowed strategies.
As a consequence, in the case of the publishing industry, the vast majority of rationales explained in the previous title apply.
The distortion of reality in the case of information becomes more critical, when the dam's spokesman announces the Sunday newspaper from six in the afternoon on Saturday, we will be reading the reality of Sunday on Saturday night ? If after six o'clock on Saturday night something extraordinary happens, we will have lost the money from the newspaper because we will have to buy one again on Sunday first thing in the morning and something more curious when comparing our newspaper bought on Saturday night with that of our neighbor purchased Sunday morning oh surprise! It is not the same, most of the time the headlines change, the advertising is not the same, some items are left over or are missing, in essence it is not the same product.
The publishing industry is also this afternoon to adjust this type of strategy, on pain of starting to sell us the information on Sunday from noon on Saturday, which will put us in a dilemma if the issue on Saturday should also be sold on Friday at midday. six in the afternoon and so on.
Reflecting on it carefully in the cases of cars and newspapers, this strategy will not represent the sale of additional units of the product, since buying on Saturday or the future model in the current time does not generate a new consumer, it is simply a tactic To get ahead of the competition, what can be a top-selling unit in my statistics and one less in my competitor's, but the same units in the end in the industry, is it worth distorting reality just for this reason?
So this strategy in strict terms of the product does not lead to buying and consuming a product that "Looks… But Isn't"?
THE IMMEDIATE RADIO
In this case I start from the bowels of the chair when in the university at the beginning of the careers of communication, advertising, journalism, social communication and in the same subjects of the Marketing faculties, it is taught within the framework of the theory of media teaching about the advantages and disadvantages of the media and reviewing these lines we find that one of the main advantages attributed to the radio medium is "immediacy", that is, the possibility of transmitting live and direct from the place and at the time of the events, which only applies to sports broadcasts.
Regarding the news area of the radio medium in our countries of influence, it seems again that this falls into the "It seems… But It is not."
Definitely the journalists and radio producers are forgetting the theory of what they learned in the first years of teaching, when the listeners mainly of the news spaces of tomorrow and those of the now called pink press or of the spectacle, are turning their spaces into reading transmissions From what other media say, particularly the press, we no longer usually remember if we read a story in the newspaper or heard it on the radio because finally the second medium transmitted it by reproducing it from the first. This practice is so evident that we not only notice it in the reading (verbatim, that is with semicolons) by an editorial writer of a written medium through an audio visual medium,if not that through radio waves we hear how blatantly the pages of newspapers and magazines go by and what is even more unheard of, wanting to pass it off as their own material. In the same way that some local radio stations pay rights to reproduce or retransmit international networks, they should pay rights to newspapers and magazines to read their articles.
At present, this phenomenon is spreading more as a result of the ease offered by the internet, although in the same way the internet or the written press, the radio medium is purposely losing one of its sales arguments not only commercial but academic. In order to leave as a reflection some paths to follow, the academy and its theorists should review whether at present this traditional advantage of the radio medium is still in force, and on the other hand producers, broadcasters and broadcasters in general should try to put more microphones on the street at the right time when events are news, commercial, cultural or informative.
A case of last minute just for the reflection of each one: Christmas is in December not in September and just for not entering into recurrence with notes already covered in this blog, I will mention some topics of my entries that fit in this category and that I invite to reeler to check if it also "Looks… But It Isn't":
Low price strategies
Entry: THE THOUSAND AND UN?, May 2010
The customer is always right
Entry: PARADIGMS OF MODERN MARKETING, December 2009
The consumer advocate.
Entry: NO CLIENTS ALLOWED, March 2010
And the closing reflection
Reality continues to be our best ally.
Lair Ribeiro
