Imagine. Imagine our world where there is no one to market to since
there is no one who wants to buy anything. What would then happen to the
corporation? To enterprise? To goods, to services? To currencies, to
stocks, to options, to futures? To jobs, to professions, to
vocations…would our daily work a day life come to a grinding halt just
like the huge metal blades of a turbine slow down and eventually stop
when the plant shuts down. Will then that be the end of the world of
marketing as we see it?
Lets face it. At its core the entire world of commerce as it is
structured today is like a “need satisfaction” engine. It is like this
humongous locomotive hurtling at great speed satisfying multiple needs
of corporations and individuals by producing a vast array of goods and
services. And what fuels this engine? A highly combustible compound fuel
called “need creation”. The more fuel you add to the firebox the faster
the engine travels
With a little help from Vedanta if we try and identify the
ingredients that lend the combusting property to this potent fuel they
are primarily two; “the desire to acquire” something new and the “fear
of losing” something that you already have. And if we analyze deeper we
find that marketers are constantly engaged in altering these two
ingredients to achieve maximum potency of this need creating fuel
For a moment consider the “fear of loss” ingredient that is
constantly thrown at you. The preventive healthcare industry instills
the “fear” that you may succumb to an ailment tomorrow, the insurance
company portends that your house is sure to burn down someday, the
lawyer charges for a prenuptial making you imagine that divorce could be
a distinct possibility, the iodized salt manufacturer scares you with
pictures of abnormal goiter, the fund manager scares you that you are
headed for a depressing poverty stricken lonely old age, builders of old
age homes warn you that your children will indeed desert you to the
elements some day….and the fear list goes on
And then there is the “desire to acquire” ingredient. You can
“acquire” a better skin by using a certain cosmetic and in-fact outdo
even the almighty in the domain of dermatology, you can acquire a
certain status by owning an expensive car, you can acquire friends by
buying into a club membership, why you can even acquire the neighbors
envy if you own a certain television and wait, you can even acquire an
ego (!!) if you buy a certain laptop…
They say as long as humans exist, the human mind exists; desire and
fear will drive activity. So in that sense marketers and marketing is
blessed with perennial existence
But one can see contrarian signals emerging. People are getting tired
of constant sense bombardment by goods and services that claim to
satisfy some need or the other. There is some movement in the direction
of controlling if not reducing needs. There are signs that the modern
concept of "
happiness through need-satisfaction" is losing ground to the traditional concept of "
happiness through need reduction"
So what happens when the potency of the need creation fuel drops?
What if people stop getting scared of losing something they have or do
not desire to constantly acquire something that they don’t? Will the
need satisfaction engine slow down? Will it produce lesser number of
goods and services? And is marketing as a function prepared for this
scenario. Or will its relevance as a function as we conventionally see
cease to exist? Or will it emerge in a new avatar? And what will that
be?
Marketing professionals will need to be prepared…anti-marketing is lurking somewhere…. waiting to rise…
Helicon Consulting
