Pizzas made in heaven

Citation

Lindstrom, M. (2009), "Pizzas made in heaven", Young Consumers, Vol. 10 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/yc.2009.32110aab.001

Pizzas made in heaven

Article Type: Executive insight From: Young Consumers, Volume 10, Issue 1

A few months ago I overheard a conversation between an eight year old and a nine year old who were sitting behind me on a plane as we were about to take off. On our taxi down the runway we passed by numerous planes, and every time we did the kids amusingly commented on the brands: “Look at SAS” the boy said to the girl: “I checked out their web site the other day and they’re losers. They call themselves SAS but the web address is Scandinavian.net. They don’t have a clue about branding”. I had to double check that it was the eight-year-old kid behind me talking – it was! The girl said, “Talk about great branding” and she pointed at easyjet.com. “They know how to guide people to their website. No wonder they’re doing well”. The conversation reminded me of one taking place in a boardroom with high-powered executives discussing branding strategy.

The next generation of consumers are born and raised with a mouse in their hand and a computer as a window to the rest of the world. Some years ago I advised LEGO to use their own target audience as marketing advisors showing how amazing the knowledge is that kids have about brands. Ironically, this cannot be said regarding the insight of adults about kids or consumers in general. We are all so busy running around putting out fires that fewer and fewer truly have the time required to blend in with consumers. It is as though the gulf between them and us is getting bigger and bigger, creating probably one of the greatest misunderstandings in the history of marketing; that the next generation is just like past generations. They are not and here is why:

1. 1.

   I am sure you are tired to death of hearing about it, but the internet has changed everything because with it came interactivity, and with that came the ability to interact, interfere and interrupt everything. Those days when brands could control every signal they sent are long gone and guess what, the power that once belonged to brands has moved into the hands of the consumer. Think about how one single consumer forced Nike to its knees when he asked Nike to produce a pair of shoes with the word: Sweatshop written on the side. Nike rejected it, the consumer demanded it and days later it became headline news in The New York Times. I call this me-selling-proposition (MSP) and it means that brands finally have to learn to let go and truly put the consumer in the driver’s seat. It is a fundamental change that means that marketeers jobs will include monitoring everything from chatrooms and bulletin boards to blogs (do you do this by the way? If not, you should better get started) as this is where a potential crises can be spotted, or amazing opportunities can be picked up.

2. 2.

   They are instantaneous and expect instant results. With Twitting, yet another level of instant behavior has been added to the equation. Brands on the other hand are slow, at best they can turn around in months, forget about weeks and days. You must be kidding. Yet this is what will happen soon. Brands that cannot pick up on trends, breaking news or rumors, and react on these in hours, will soon face amazing challenges for the simple reason that kids just will not respect them because of their slowness. Instead, they will respect brands that listen and react in hours. It shows them those brands are on the same wavelength as they are. How fast can you turn things around in your organization if breaking news is hitting the media, creating one of those amazing opportunities for your brand to pick up on and ride the wave? If the answer is more than weeks it is time to change.

3. 3.

   They are critical. Any advertising claim is analyzed in seconds and spit out if seems to be false. The reality is that every kid is a professional marketeer. They hate to be talked down to and are amazingly quick to pick up on made up claims removed from the truth, and in all honesty, they prefer brands that are prepared to share some self-irony. Forget about picture perfect brands. It may be that our generation loves it, but kids find it fake. So if you happen to be remotely communicating to kids, or have realized that kids indeed influence most of the purchase decisions made by the parents (such as the fact that 56 percent of kids influence the car purchase by their parents) then employ a couple of kids and ask them to oversee some of your communication. You are likely to wake up to reality.

As one girl said as she spotted the slogan: “Pizzas – made in heaven” printed on the cardboard box: “Pizzas are not made in heaven; this is just one of those stupid advertising claims to help the company create an emotional engagement between the consumer and the brand”. She was seven years of age!

Martin LindstromAuthor of Buyology and BRAND Sense.