Recession Is Coming: Let’s Get The Basics Of Marketing Right, By Yasin Amanullah
Like every year, we are all starting to see various marketing experts come out with their predictions about how marketing will evolve in 2023. I don’t pay much heed to these predictions as they rarely come out accurate.
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” — Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO.
“Everyone’s always asking me when Apple will come out with a cell phone. My answer is, ‘Probably never.'” — David Pogue, The New York Times.
The above are two of the many predictions which went wrong. Hence what follows below is not a prediction but just my personal views on what Marketers can expect & should focus on in 2023. You can of course agree or disagree with the below based on your experience and foresight.
Opinion 1:Metaverse will not gain traction in 2023
I know we marketers like to hold on to every new toy that is out there. It sounds cool and sexy to impress leaders in our organization who sometimes have no clue about the latest trends in the marketing world. However, Metaverse is one area that I feel will continue to struggle in 2023 for brands.
Meta (formerly Facebook) is leading the buzz around Metaverse. So how has it gone so far :
- In the first nine months of 2022, the firm’s metaverse division, Reality Labs has lost over $9.4 billion on R&D spend
- According to another source Reality Labs has lost around $36 billion between Jan 2019 and September 2022
- One of the leading investors in the company, the CEO of Altimeter Capital had this to say about the investments the parent company Meta is making in Metaverse “super-sized and terrifying, even by Silicon Valley standards.”
The stock price of Meta has fallen by more than 50% already. Now the entire drop of course cannot be attributed only to their investment in Metaverse but it shows that investors are not confident in the direction the company is heading into.
A few weeks back the EU hosted a 24-hour Metaverse party which cost them around $400,000 ….guess how many people showed up….only 6.
Let that sink in and think if you want to allocate your marketing $ behind this platform in 2023. Do you want to invest your marketing $ in a technology that is yet to deliver anything of value to the industry?
Let’s adopt a wait & see approach and revisit in 2024 if the so-called potential for the Metaverse for marketers still holds. Let’s continue to keep a close eye on how this future evolves.
Meanwhile, our customers are out there in the real world without heavy headsets. They want F2F experiences. They are visiting shopping malls, restaurants, cinemas, gyms, theme parks, etc. Let’s make sure our brands are present where our customers are and invest our marketing $$$ accordingly.
Opinion 2: Brand Purpose …how much do people really care
Now before I get hammered for pointing the finger at one of the most beloved concepts, let me clarify that I’m a firm believer that all organizations big or small have a responsibility towards society and need to play an active role.
The brand Purpose of an organization, if distinct and inspirational can serve as a great platform for employer branding and help attract the right talent to the organization. People love to work for a company that has a purpose and is playing its role in making the world a better place to live.
The problem I have is that some marketers believe that the only reason consumers buy their brands is because of the purpose or as Simon Sinek likes to call it “ the WHY”.
Recently Unilever got a lot of criticism from one of its investors who had this to say about Brand Purpose “A company which feels it has to define the purpose of Hellmann’s mayonnaise has in our view clearly lost the plot. The Hellmann’s brand has existed since 1913, so we would guess that by now consumers have figured out its purpose (spoiler alert — salads and sandwiches).”
Let’s do an exercise. (Disclaimer: I got inspired with this exercise from an article I read a long time back but don’t remember the name of the author). Go to the bathroom in your house and look at all the brands of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, moisturizer, toothbrush, toothpaste, and other toiletries and identify the brand purpose and the “ WHY” of each one of them.
How many were you able to identify?
Do you really know the brand purpose of your shampoo? Do you really know the “Why” of your toothpaste?? Do you even care?
Did you buy those brands because of their Purpose? I bet you bought them primarily for one or more of the below reasons:
- you have always bought those brands and are happy with the product performance
- you heard about it from a friend and are giving it a try
- you simply found a good deal in the neighboring supermarket, after all, we are always looking for a good deal, especially in times of high inflation
Do you really see yourself walking along the supermarket aisle and every time you pick up a product you ask yourself “ I will buy this product because they have a brand purpose and I know “Why” they exist ?”
I like the following quote by Jenni Romaniuk
“A brand’s purpose is to sell stuff”
As we enter into a recession and the purchasing power goes down, it’s our job as marketers to ensure that we provide the best value for money for our customers. It’s our job to ensure we continue to grow our customer base and our market shares as spending trends go down. It’s our job to continue to differentiate our brand vs that of the competition.
If we don’t get the basics right our customers will start switching to private-label brands and once they do , it will be very difficult to bring them back to our brand.
Let’s focus again on the basics of marketing. Let’s not be shy in accepting that one of our major roles as marketers is to sell the product.