Marketing is not only one of the necessary evils of business, it's almost the life's blood of some companies. I have a love/hate relationship with it as I'm sure do many others who are responsible for both the actual products a company produces as well as the promotion of said products. While I LOVE to shout about new developments I really HATE that I know it must be done in a certain way. The certain way I'm referring to is the eternal question or problem faced by so many in the past and so many more to come. How do we catch the attention of a person X while not offending person Y or alienating person Z. I'm not blaming the Ys and Zs. It's not their fault but I'll get to that later.
Most of us have at least heard of the expression "You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time." commonly attributed to good old slavery buster Abe Lincoln. If you think this is all too true the real quote was actually "You can FOOL some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't FOOL all of the people all of the time." I think Ab was a marketing guy deep down. For many companies brand awareness and brand marketing walk a fine line between "please" and "fool". Quite often in fact the two are one and the same. Most of the time marketing and advertisements don't really tell you much at all but instead allow you to draw conclusions like the "fact" that because Tiger Woods and Roger Federer using a certain razor, it must be a damn good razor! How many blades did they say it had? Micro-fine-what?
Getting back to the person X, Y and Z, the unfortunate reality of these three people is that while person X is the majority, they are also usually the idiot of the bunch who usually as formed an opinion about the product before even seeing it based on all of their knowledge. A knowledge typically gained through advertisements like the razor one. Y is a bit uptight but actually cares about the technical spec and might actually do some real research. Z is all about the money. Cheaper is better even if that razor was CO2 farting Chernobyl powered by mal-nourished sweatshop children on hamster wheels and tested on pandas.
So how then do we solve the problem of trying to actually please everyone all the time. From the perspective of knowing the product well, it's easy to please person Y with information at least if not with the product itself. It's person X we really need to please and unfortunately the best way to attack that problem is the old fashioned way, with money.
It's no secret that companies like Nike who are on top of the pack stay on top of the pack. In our world, every company has essentially the same methods to communicate about their products. These are primarily tv, radio, internet. The basic costs to use each doesn't change depending on whether you're Superinterglobalmegacorp or Fran's B&B. It should be no surprise then the company with the most money to spent will of course dominate all of these areas and as a result when it comes to decision time for buying that next stretch fit micro flexmathingy the brand and logo that comes to mind without having to flip the "on" switch in your brain is pre-programmed. Additionally because that programming (marketing) has created multiple associations between product and greatness through costly sponsorship endorsements (eg. Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, David Beckham) then person X will also consider the product to be great by proxy. It actually requires the kind of increased brain function person X doesn't frequently exhibit to acknowledge that these stars are actually not discerning individuals who chose of their own free will to endorse the product out of sheer adoration for it, but in fact paid employees doing what they're told. It works. Of course if I could scare up the 5 gajillion get Beckham to say he loves and wears my products I would, but I can't.
The final consideration with marketing is the size of the market. There's no point if spending a large or even small fortune on marketing if the potential customer base isn't large enough to provide a return. The average person X, or Y and Z for that matter, rarely consider the marketing reality that no company will spend money on something unless they expect to get a
financial return from the exercise that will cover the costs. That can be a short term return in terms of an advert for a sale or a long term return if the exercise is based on exposure by, for example, sponsoring Wimbledon or the Olympics. Yes that means if Nike give 20 bakillion squids to Johnny Awesome, then think they'll make twice that back thanks to the overwhelming number of person Xs who will gobble up everything Johnny Awesome drops a bead of sweat onto. Keep that in mind next time you ask any company for a sponsorship. Have your prospective return in mind and compare that with what you're asking for. If you can't do the math then it's unlikely you'll get a sponsorship. Getting back to the market size, the sport we dwell in is Ultimate Frisbee. If Ultimate Frisbee were an animal it would be the something like the Lion-Tailed Macaque and by that I mean, only other Lion-Tailed Macaques have actually heard of the Lion-Tailed Macaques or know anything about them. Try specialising in selling gear to the Lion-Tailed Macaque market. Welcome to the business side of Ultimate Frisbee. To further drive this home let's compare Ultimate Frisbee to Football (soccer). There is approximately 4600 professional players in the UK across all leagues. There is an estimated 46 million fans. That's a ratio of 10000:1 fans to players. In this context, sponsoring a team makes complete sense. The exposure result is massive especially considering that even non-fans will likely still see the effect of the sponsorship. In Ultimate Frisbee the ratio of fans to players is closer to 1:10000.
You were probably reading this (oh thanks for reading by the way, I'm sure you're in limited but excellent company) hoping for a solution. A great big answer to tell you how to market products and company branding with little or no money to a tiny and often apathetic market. Unfortunately I don't have one and wish by the beard of Odin's ghost that I did. Until I win the lottery, wake up and realise I actually have some wealthy parents to provide a sudden and massive bankroll to my business, get bought up by a Winnipeg based holding company or the population of the Ultimate playing public or fans in the UK and Europe increases 100 fold I'll just have to do what I already do. Tread lightly, say truthful things, make the best products I can and hope for the best.
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