Trends & Sustainable Marketing
Trying to work out who leads marketing trends, whilst rationalising the positive and negative effects, is a bit like asking which came first; ‘the chicken half empty’, or ‘the egg half full.’
Nonetheless, marketing trends must be ‘right’, regardless of whether they are dictating or following consumer demand, otherwise advertising would cease to be the biggest industry in the world behind the space programme. So, if these trends are ‘right’, is the customer always right? First of all, I need to make a distinction between ‘the customer’ and ‘the consumer’, since the former needs to consider the latter in many cases.
The statement that the customer is always right is not true at all. It would be more correct to say that the customer must get what they ask for, regardless of whether they are right or wrong. If the customer is also the consumer, they reserve the right to be wrong, so in that sense they are always right. If a customer enjoys the privilege of falsely being right whilst actually being in the wrong, then their money will buy this.
With regard to professional services, the customer generally doesn’t want to be right. Most will want help understanding what gets results, and what is the right way to achieve this. This means that they are (more often than not) willing to listen to the advice of the experts they employ to handle their project. When it comes to creating a marketing tool such as a website, the responsibility of delivering a successful product doesn’t depend on the client being right, it depends on the tool itself being the right one for the job; achieving the target objectives. Fortunately, most clients will understand that their own subjective ideals have to be subservient to proper, established systems of approach.
In short, this means that whilst the designer is subject to the client, the client is subject to the end user, or target audience. So, it is the end user / consumer who is always right, since ultimately they are the ones who pay. If packaging and trends dictate how people buy in a given market, then these perceptions must meet the target audience expectation, and it is this dynamic that must be ‘right’ to accommodate both.
This leaves us to define the context of the word ‘right’. If we are talking about a moral right, then that leads us into the murky waters of advertising ethics, though if we are using the word ‘right’ to define a successful formula for selling, then anyone subscribing to a successful system is ‘right’. This may be the designer, it may also be the client, but it is always the end user / target audience, as they are the ones who are subject to the governing trends.
This may sound cynical, but who is the real cynic in manipulative or patronising advertising? The bottom line is that if a service or product offers real value for money that is the core of real sustainable marketing. There is no moral excuse for cynical advertising, though conversely, there is no excuse for not taking advantage of trends to promote a product or service in this day and age. The key is to deliver value for money in the marketplace, regardless of how we promote our services or products, and whether we take advantage of governing trends or not.
