Words mean nothing but matter much. More so in marketing.
To mean one thing and to say it with the right word or phrase is a challenge in itself. Finding the right set of words to express your brand’s offering proves elusive at best and counter-productive at worst.
Getting it right or just a wee bit off target could spell the difference between success and failure. Take the case of Horlicks. It once stood for ‘nutrition’; and targeted families. The brand was sicker than the users who were using it!
And then Horlicks decided to target kids and made one small change in the way it described its offering. It replaced the word ‘nutrition’ with ‘nourishment’. It’s been ipaang gupaang japaang for Horlicks, ever since!
Yamaha has been talking about ‘speed’. But sadly, the bike is fast and sales are not. If only they used a better word – ‘Thrill’. The word ‘Thrill’ encompasses speed, builds an emotional layer to it and thus adds more oomph to the brand’s offering.
See, how one word makes a difference!
It’s not just about English words in advertising; the same applies to our 14-major-languages-and-million-dialects nation as well. The problem and challenges of using the right word or phrase is even more pronounced.
Take the word ‘Love’. Think of an equivalent word in your mother tongue. You probably can come out with five words. But note that each of those words should be used only in specific contexts. The equivalent word for love that describes brotherly love is different from the word that describes love between friends. The word to describe motherly love isn’t the same as the one that describes the love between a boy and a girl.
A wrong word in a wrong context could alter the meaning completely. Yet, in English all those different words gets translated into one catchall word – Love!
Put simply, the use of words matters. The use of the right word matters more. ‘Father’ and ‘Dad’ mean the same. Or do they?
Read this: ‘Anyone can be a father; but it takes someone special to be dad’. Now, the two words don’t mean the same!
Here is another interesting marketing story that highlights the importance of using the right words to make the perfect difference.
A school in Virginia had trouble filling a course called ‘Home Economics for Boys’. Considering the title, this isn’t too surprising. First, the word economics puts off most students who consider it boring and bereft of bliss. Secondly, the use of the word ‘boys’ is demeaning. Once into their teens, no self-respecting boy considers himself a boy. He sees himself as a man in the making. So, it was to nobody’s surprise that the course ‘Home Economics for Boys’ found no takers.
The school tried everything possible to popularize the course but in vain.
Then they did what most marketers don’t. They put themselves in the consumer’s shoes and thought through the problem using the consumer’s viewpoint. The answer became obvious.
The problem was not the course. It was the title of the course – the words they had used. The school renamed the class ‘Bachelor Living’.
120 boys immediately signed up!
Words cost nothing. But matter much. Weigh your words watchfully. And watch it’s worth work wonders!
Bottlenecks are at the top, as the old saying goes. Most problems afflicting businesses start right up there – at the top!
I don’t mean the management or the entrepreneur who runs the business, though they are the chief captains of crime, in most cases. I am talking about how most businesses are defined, if they are defined at all. And how wrongly they end up being defined, when they do get defined.
The late Theodore Levitt said it so eloquently fifty two years ago in his path-breaking (one of my favourite) article in the Harvard Business Review titled ‘Marketing Myopia’.
Pity most respected businessmen and revered MBA’s have the foggiest when it comes to defining what business they are actually in.
Last week I had to give a speech on Marketing at the Sivakasi Chapter of Young Entrepreneurs School, a unit of the Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce. A big chunk of the audience was entrepreneurs who owned match box manufacturing units. Sivakasi accounts for 90% of India’s match box production. It also accounts for 90% of India’s fireworks manufacturing. Reason why Sivakasi is affectionately referred to as ‘Kutti Japan’! (Little Japan).
Post the speech, during the open session, most match box manufacturers had a few questions to ask: ‘Why is our business not growing as much?’ ‘Why are we stagnating?’ ‘How do we grow as fast as we once did?’
I posed Levitt’s classic question: “What business are you in?’
The answer was on expected lines. ‘We are in the match box business’.
I then explained why the match box business was stagnating – increasing usage of lighters to light cigarettes, automatic gas stove lighters, induction stoves, lack of time, space and interest to light puja lamps, increasing use of emergency lamps that has obviated the need for candles etc.,
Match box consumption is bound to come down though it might not die completely, is what I said. And then continued, “Get ready to face lesser sales and be prepared to take most of the blame.”
Obviously aghast, they retorted ‘How can we be blamed if the need for match boxes goes down due to technology and other reasons.”
I replied, “You have got your business definition completely wrong. You guys are not in the match box business. You never were.”
Having got their attention, I continued with Levitt’s theory.
“Businesses should not be defined by the products that you make; but by the needs that you satisfy. You are not in the match boxes business. You are in the business of lighting flames. If you had defined it as such, you would have been the first to come out with cigarette lighters; you would have pioneered automatic gas lighters; you would have brought out innovations like ‘Home Lites’ did.”
“The product is just the means to satisfy a need. The need in itself had to be clearly articulated and should have guided the business that you were in.”
“Since you defined your business as making match boxes, you stayed put there. And failed to realize what was happening or foresee what would happen. So now that the consumers are moving slowly out of match boxes, you realize your business is stagnating. Even worse, you still fail to realize why.”
“Business must be viewed as a customer-satisfying process. Not a goods producing process. This is because product are temporary; but needs are permanent. A market definition, that’s why, is superior to product definition.”
“PepsiCo, for instance, is not in the beverages business. If they had defined it as such they would have stagnated long time ago. They realized they are in the business of quenching thirst. Reason why they didn’t stop with colas and came out with a range of thirst quenchers – orange drinks, lemon drinks, juices, mineral water and, amazingly though perfectly right, even vodka and wine!”
“They didn’t stop there. They moved into Quick Service Restaurants through YUM Restaurants – Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, A&E, and Long John Silvers. And for good measure they even moved into salty snacks – through Frito Lay.”
“Pepsi was in the business of quenching thirst. And the clear articulation of that definition led them to one success after another.”
When I finished, I was ready to face an onslaught of angry outburst from the entrepreneurs. Here I was telling rich, successful and experienced businessmen at their face that they were wrong.
But I was humbled when they nodded and said they accepted and were willing to take the blame. I was deeply touched by the applause when I sat down.
Did I light a spark in the minds of the match box manufacturers? I hope I did. Would they redefine their business and light up Sivakasi again? I wish they do!