Niko Herzeg Marketing

So last weekend I went to watch Up in the Air. A movie about a guy (Clooney) who fires people on behalf of companies (or as he likes to say: he helps people steer their boat through desperation towards the dim light of hope…before throwing them of the boat and telling them to swim).

His life is turned upside down when a young MBA (played by Anna Kendrick) comes in and figures out that by doing the firing online and from one central location, the cost of business can be reduced by 85%. Clooney tries to convince her that this is not as clearcut as Kendrick thinks it is.

The contrast between Clooney and Kendrick serves as a nice backdrop for some practices we all know but sometimes need reminding of*:

Culture vs category Culture leads to better understanding of category

There are many problems in the lives of people, that may not directly relate to our products, but offer a chance to solve problems with tangible solutions.

Kendrick came in and saw one thing from her limited exposure and training. ” If we can cut the cost of flying by doing it via internet, we can make a killing”. Of course she is right.

Cutting cost would have made the fictional company more money. Yet what she had not experienced, was the stuff that happens all around the product they offer (in this case the firing of people).

There are issues that play a big part in the lives of the fired ones that have no relation to getting fired. Yet could have offered her company opportunities to be of bigger additional value to clients and customers than just being cheaper.

Culture (or let me rephrase that large word: an understanding of the wider lives of customers other than their behaviour when interacting with our clients catergory product) can be a fertile place for cash. But it means widening our scope.

There is this story about the public service system in Mexico around the 1950’s. It was notorious for its ineffectiveness. But gradually the productivity went up, without active involvement of the Gov. Nobody could, on the surface find a reason for this change. Turns out it was the aircondtitioning.

The siesta was something very strongly engraved in Mecixan live. Whether they be public servants, bankers, mechanics or farmers. The practice was part of the country.

So when the Mexican governement started installing airconditioning machines in city halls and other places where the servants worked, it had unexpected results.

The siesta was used for killing downtime around the hottest time of day, because it was dangerous to be outside (or that was the orginal practice, which carried over even when not entirely true for civil servants in the 1950’s anymore). Now the temperture was being kept steady at a workable one with the help of airco’s.

Slowly but surely this had an effect on the behaviour of the servants that led them not to take siestas and thus upping productivity.

Imagine if the sellers of the airco had pitched it as a means to up productivity or effectiveness, based on this insight and possible new use of product? Would that have been better than just a device to keep people cool?

I don’t know (all history tells us is, that they were bought on the strenght of other considerations), but if we had to sell airco in this day and age it would be an interesting, appealing and memorable pitch compared to standard pitches of just keeping cool.

People are influenced by all kinds of things: the context of interaction, people we look to/at, folklore, the physical world around us, previous experiences, fears, insecurities, much more… and the category product. Use it all to be of better service and ultimately more profitable.

This concludes this series of posts.

*For arguments sake I leave the morality of working for/with a company that fires people for a living out of the equation. Same goes for the actual movie. No accounting for taste.