Disrupt Your Customers (They’ll Love You For It)

Traditional marketing (whatever that is) is dead. We are living in an age when the normal stuff marketing students are learning just doesn’t prepare them for the world we now live in. The usual AIDA model (attention, interest, desire, action) just won’t cut it. And neither will most of the other acronyms they are asked to memorise. The theory written in academic textbooks is just too clinical. It is written for a different time. A time when consumers had a lot less choice, a lot more time, and were much more predictable in terms of their behaviour. Things have changed, dramatically.

Consumers are bombarded with thousands of marketing messages on a daily basis. One particular report suggested the daily marketing information overload could be to the tune of 5,000 messages every single day. Do they notice all of these messages? Not a chance. Most of these messages will be a waste of time and money. According to Nigel Hollis, Chief Global Analyst at Millward Brown, consumers have become experts in ‘ad avoidance’. Consumers are complex animals and, if brands want to win their hard-earned attention, they must create disruptive marketing campaigns.

Now, for the record, I said ‘disruptive’ not ‘interruptive’ marketing. Nobody likes being interrupted from doing something they find interesting, to be forced to pay attention to something uninteresting and not relevant to them. The old rule of matching a target audience with a relevant message still applies. But what has changed is the style of the messaging. It must be something that stops people in their tracks. Here are some essential ingredients of marketing that is disruptive.

1. Entertainment

Think back to the good old days (before marketing got over-complicated) when street salesmen stood up on a soap box and entertained their audience. They were showmen. They made people laugh. Marketers don’t do that enough anymore. Consumers don’t want information, they want entertainment. Marketing has become too boring. Brands need to find a way to entertain. If they don’t, they will blend in with the mundane.

2. Surprise

People don’t notice things that are expected. Things that are expected can be invisible. We need to find ways to surprise our customers, to create campaigns that are unexpected. Make it BIGGER. Make it brighter. Make it appear different. It must contain a touch of the unexpected. It must surprise to stand-out.

3. Experience

Marketers that engage their audience in a memorable brand experience deliver a more compelling message. The key to achieving this is to deliver a multi-sensory experience. As humans, we don’t perceive the world around us through just one or two senses, which is how most brand messages try to communicate with us. We are influenced by information received through our five senses. It is easier to deliver a brand experience when you can physically bring consumers to a venue. The challenge, however, has become being able to deliver a brand experience via communication channels. The question is not just what does your brand look like, but what does it feel, sound, smell, and taste like?

4. Amplification

Word of mouth has always been important. Since time began, never has there been a more influential form of communication. But never has word of mouth communications been of more relevance to brands than they are today. The ubiquitous nature of online platforms and social networks has given rise to consumer-to-consumer communications that have been injected with steroids. Messages now spread like wildfire. But not every message does; only ones worth talking about do. Brands now need to find out what their customers deem worthy of social chat, what they will feel compelled to talk about. The powerful amplification that consumers add to messages has become the single reason why some brands fly and others don’t. Just look the recent phenomenon Fifty Shades of Grey. The conversation diffusion rate of this particular brand was nothing short of astonishing. Every single adult in the country had at least one conversation about it. Most critics say the book is awful and the movie is even worse than awful. And yet, the book will go down as one of the literary classics of our time (based on sales) and the movie was a massive box-office success. Why? Amplification. Find out what gets people talking and, if you can reach a tipping point, you are on to a winner.

5. Urgency

If we allow our customers to procrastinate we give them time to think about why they shouldn’t buy. We need to create a sense of urgency. We need to compel people to stop what they’re doing and take action. Now! Brands like Microsoft and Nintendo are masters at this. If you want to buy the latest video game in time for Christmas, you have to buy it early because they just don’t have enough! Urgency turns into frenzy and product literally flies off the shelf. Some poor, unfortunate parents scamper frantically in December looking for Mario Kart 8 only to be frowned upon by the smug parents who bought in October. They really were the lucky ones. Brands need to put a time frame on their offer. Get them to buy it before they even have time to think about. There’s not plenty for everyone. There’s a shortage. Hurry or you might be disappointed. It is an emergency after all.

6. Provocation 

“To stimulate or give rise to a reaction or emotion (Oxford Dictionary).” Marketing that doesn’t get a response is utterly useless. Whether people love it or hate it, the message must evoke a strong reaction. And striking the emotional middle ground won’t do it. The message must be provocative. It must shock people one way or the other. It must challenge people’s intelligence, their perceptions. Most marketing messages have become bland and, right now, playing it safe is the riskiest thing brands can do.

So, there you have it. It’s time to break new ground. It’s time to innovate. The ‘traditional’ approach is no longer relevant. If we want to effect change and engender a response we must do something different. Now is not the time for conventional thinking. It’s time to practice disruptive marketing.

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