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September, 2010 |
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Market Update |
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Surveys & Special Issues |
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Best Brands |
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2009
December |
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The best in Oman across 15 categories |
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Best Brands |
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2008
December |
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A more comprehensive outlook on offer this year with six new categories added |
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Also From the Apex Stable |
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Communicating right |
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Matt Horobin, Feb 2010 |
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In comparison to other markets both within and beyond the GCC, Oman has relatively low population. This fact, in combination with the tightly-knit nature of the Omani community, this means that businesses and brands often default to generic, ‘catch-all’ communication strategies.
Furthermore, given the absence of a cost-effective research infrastructure, this broad-brush approach often feels like the only option.
After all, without insight, it is difficult to perceive your customer base as anything other than exactly that – a single, impenetrable, anonymous entity. But is this an effective way of maximising the market opportunity?
Ultimately, this scatter-gun approach sees a business or brand trying to be everything to all people which, in any scenario – brand communications or otherwise – is very hard to do.
For fear of alienating a single audience segment, these brands are forced to forego any strong values, creating an undefined personality and weakening their appeal. After all, if you stand for nothing, you leave your customer little to find affinity with.
The end result is a ‘beige’ brand that holds little or no emotional equity in the mind of its consumer. This is not a sustainable position for a brand; emotional connection is a brand’s oxygen and deprived of this, it cannot thrive.
A more effective approach is to pursue a targeted communications strategy, aimed at a business or brands core consumer – the heartland of the brand. Effective communications must be built on audience understanding, allowing a business to translate the world of the brand into that of the consumer.
This is all fine in theory but given the challenges of gaining audience insight in the local market, how can a business begin taking this targeted approach?
Firstly, a brand must identify who its core consumer is. Undoubtedly, every business would claim to know this already but I would recommend this to be investigated afresh without the bias of preconception and historical evidence.
A business should begin by talking to those that sell to its customer directly, be it its own, internal sales team or a third-party reseller. Efforts should be made to find out not just who tends to purchase but also when, why, how often and in what quantities. Immediately, a brand can start to form the bare bones of its consumer.
To add flesh to these bones, a business must go one step further and talk to its customer directly; probing to understand everything it can about them. Most critically, it should endeavour to identify the motivations that drive them to invest in its product and the role it plays in their lives, both functionally and emotionally. Remember, such conversations need to be artfully designed and delivered to ensure that their output is of value.
You cannot expect the consumer to tell you a key insight about themselves; you have to draw it out of them skilfully and read between the lines. In fact, some of the finest insights are borne from what is left unsaid.
Finally, a brand must classify its consumer. At this stage, it is very easy to rely on letters and numbers, citing age-groups, national social grades (eg, A, B. C1 etc.) – even household earnings brackets. This should be avoided.
The social grading system mentioned above was developed over 50 years ago in the UK and bears little relevance today even in Europe let alone in Oman. As a brand looking to connect emotionally with its audience core, it must strive to understand their values; what makes them tick.
As a result, a brand should have total clarity on its audience. Globally, it is common practice to bring this consumer to life, creating a picture portrait – even giving them a name. This exercise is certainly worthwhile, if only to serve as a reminder of exactly who you are targeting.
However, it is a fact that every idea is subjective and a targeted message will not appeal to all the parties at once. Of course, its senior management needs to be comfortable with a brand’s communications but a strong marketeer should use the positive business performance resultant of the campaign to satisfy internal stakeholders rather than the campaign message itself. The focus for all communications must be the core consumer.
Adopting targeted communications not only offers a brand an opportun-ity to truly connect with its core audience but also makes for cleaner, clearer communications that will doubtless be more effective in the marketplace.
Matt Horobin is strategic planner, TBWA/ZEENAH
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