Marketing Battles – Part VII

(This was written in 1988 for the parting copy of the IIM-Bangalore hostel magazine IIMages as a spoof history of marketing management. Needless to say, the fictional company and characters do not intend to describe anyone in the real world and, if any existing company or person is mentioned, there is certainly no intent to state that the actions and motives ascribed to them are in any way the truth This was written in an era where the internet was not even a blip on the horizon and TV was a relative newcomer to the world. Furthermore, it is set in an era when even TV was barely a blip on the horizon.)
Click here for Part I
In the world dominated by Z, all dogs were sold to all customers and all customers bought the same dog food. This lack of class consciousness irked a businessman so much that he set forth into business with a gold-wrapped dog food pack specifically aimed at the rich. “Sir! He is adopting a Product Differentiation strategy to capture a market!” said the worried MR head. “He is trying to show that his product is different from other products, Sir!” jumped in PS in his role of official translator. Z smiled indulgently. “Let him play his games, poor fellow! He can only manage to get some scraps off our table” The problem with such ideas is that not everyone took this lofty view of not being a “Me-too”. Soon there were a few others competing for the rich, a few offering the poor man’s dog food and others trying their hand at the not-so-rich. Z’s sales were relatively unaffected. It seemed that the more expensive dog foods did not go too well with the rich, who seemed not to care for throw-away expensive packaging on their pet foods. The poor either did not have pets or cared for their pets too well to stint on quality. The middle classes were content to be doing what they had always done. But this was just the beginning. One of these entrepreneurs went in for a massive advertising campaign. “For the elegant people, the only suitable pet is the Pekinese. The discerning Pekinese eats nothing but XYZ dog foods.” Hoardings all over showed a harried looking elegant lady being dragged helter-skelter by a German Shepherd on one half. On the other half was the same lady wearing a dazzling smile and an adoring Pekinese in her arms. Beneath these, the Pekinese was depicted in a bib digging into ABC Dog food daintily with a knife and fork. A bubble sprouting from the dog’s head pondered, ‘I wonder why no-one thought of making something like ABC dog food before.” The MR head was in jitters. “Sir! Seems to me that he has got his market segmentation and product targeting right this time!” “He means, Sir, that they are now selling Pekinese to the rich, which probably makes sense to the rich. He is then targeting his product to the Pekinese.” “Not just that Sir! He is practically saying that if you want to be considered elegant you better own a Pekinese. Thus, he has added value to the Pekinese and, thereby, his product. What he is now doing is selling elegance and not selling only dog food!” Z was unfazed. “You were worried the last time and nothing much happened. This too is bound to fizzle. If a chap wants to spend his lifetime selling dogs to little ladies, let him indulge himself.” Success breeds complacency. Z’s complacency was totally misplaced this time. The new entrepreneur took off and created a revolution in his turn. The streets saw a new set of hoardings. “For the security conscious – the Alsatian! For the Alsatian that can look a thief in the eye – DEF dog fooda” “Do you crave love and loyalty – When are you getting a Pomeranian?” Soon, no dog would deign to look at dog food that was marketed for another breed. Every person was slotted into an appropriate category as the likely owner of a certain breed of dog and if, by mischance, a person occupying one slot bought a dog belonging to another he was shunned by Society as being lacking in social graces.
If one lady said approvingly, “Oh! Alvin is here! What a perfect Pekinese man!”, the other would say disparagingly, “That poor dear? Do you know what he has gone and done? Bought an Alsation!” Thereafter, both of them would twitch their skirts pointedly out of the way whenever Alvin passed by them.
“Look at Sam, there! What a social climber! Just because he sports a Pekinese around, he thinks he is superior. A Mongrel man he is and a Mongrel man is all he will be.” Cat foods did not take long to follow the trend. Hoardings sprung up in favor of all sorts of cats. “The mark of an elegant man – The Persian Cat” “Home-grown cat – Nature’s most efficient rat-catcher” Nothing that the dog-owner enjoyed was left out for the cat-owner either. The MR guys made one last ditch attempt. “Sir! Every niche in the market has someone targeting them. We need to do something” Z silenced PS before he translated. “I know! What he means is that everyone has been categorized and the other guys have targeted their products to every category” PS and the MR head nodded assent. “All this is just a fashion! It will all pass away and our customers will get back to good old Dog foods. After all, we give them the best dog food” Z may have created the idea of advertising but he had no idea of the powers that he had unleashed. He still believed that he lived in a world where the utility of a product scored over fashion. He had not understood that he had been instrumental in creating this new era where being in fashion was the only utility of a product.
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