Njeri is sitting at a table in a cafe. Her eyes catch those of a good-looking man sitting in the corner. The man comes over. “Hi my name’s Tom, and I’ve got a really expensive car.” “Well, hi Tom, I’m Njeri. It’s good to meet you.” Says Njeri, “Do you come to this cafe often?” “My name’s Tom…” says Tom, enunciating the word carefully. “Well that’s good to know. Do you live around here?” asks Njeri. Tom smiles sweetly. “I’ve got a really expensive car.” “You’ve already said that,” says Njeri. “Tell me something else so that we can get to know each other better.” “OK” says Tom. “What’s your full name, your address and how old are you?” he asks. “That’s a bit personal,” replies Njeri. “But my full name is Njeri Mutua, and I live in Nairobi West. I’ll be 32 on Friday.” “That’s fine,” says Tom. “Do you like going to the movies, the theatre, bars or opera?” “I like cosy evenings in front of the TV!” says Njeri. “Now tell me about you!” “I’ve got to go,” says Tom. “I’ll be back.” At the end of the week, Tom is back. “Hi Tom!” says Njeri. “How’s your car?” “Hi” says Tom. “My name’s Tom and I’ve got an expensive three litre car, a Kompressor. It’s good that we now have a relationship.” “Relationship!” says Njeri. “You keep on going on about your car, you’ve asked me all these intrusive questions, and yet I know nothing about you.” “And,” she continues, “You’ve forgotten it’s my birthday today!” “But my name’s Tom.” says Tom, puzzled. “And I’ve got an expensive three litre car.” Where did Tom go wrong? Although Njeri was telling Tom things about herself, he wasn’t using any of that information. And when she asked him about himself, he clammed up. Tom was talking at her, not to her. Njeri felt Tom wasn’t treating her as a human being. To understand the problem more deeply, we can analyse Njeri’s experience of Tom in terms of three components, his performance, his treatment of her and the sense of community he builds up between them. Performance means Tom’s ability to meet Njeri’s needs on first meeting her. He does this well. Njeri likes confident, good-looking men; and though she’d never admit it to him, she finds flash cars a bit of a turn on. Click on www.yrafrica.com/directperformance to see examples of brands which do this well. Treatment is Tom’s ability to make her feel she knows him, and to reflect that back to him. Here, he’s failed. He shows no recognition of their first meeting; he’s even forgotten her birthday. Community means Tom’s ability to make Njeri feel part of something, perhaps through finding interests or friends they have in common. Here too he has failed. Njeri ought to be thinking what it would be like being a couple with Tom, perhaps imagining snuggling up with him in front of a log fire. But she isn’t thinking anything of the sort. However good-looking Tom is, and however expensive his car, Tom has failed to connect with Njeri as a human being, and therefore Njeri has developed no desire to get involved with him. As a result, despite his two meetings with her, Njeri may say hello to him next time he comes to the cafe, but no way is she going to date him. But how is Tom doing is classic marketing terms? Let’s assume Tom is a brand. The funny thing is that by the classic rules of marketing, Tom is doing pretty well with Njeri. A classic marketer would tell Tom that he has: Achieved spontaneous recall of his name. Effectively communicated his core value proposition - owning an expensive car. Built up a good bank of relationship data from her, with her full opt-in consent. Achieved his behavioural objective, of moving from trial date to a repeat meeting. Are you engaging And indeed when we look at classic consumer brands, many act just like Tom. ZAIN spend much of its marketing budget telling people that it’s called ZAIN and it has COUNTRYWIDE COVERAGE, despite the fact that that everyone already knows this and some dispute it! ROYCO invests in telling people that it’s called ROYCO and it MAKES FOOD TASTE BETTER despite the fact that everyone has known that for years. This is not bad marketing, but on its own it is just not very engaging. Other brands try relationship marketing or ‘CRM’ as it’s known. They collect your name, address, date of birth, phone, fax and mobile number, email address, marital status, personal and household income level and number of children - but then rarely use any of these facts to build a relationship with you. All of this reveals a fundamental problem with classic marketing. It’s very good at getting people to try something in the first place. It’s good at creating new, light users, or getting your brand into a consumer’s repertoire of brands. But not so good at getting someone who already uses a brand to develop a deeper relationship with it. This is a problem of today This wasn’t a so much problem in the 1970s to 90s here because Kenya was full of people trying things for the first time. But today we have established brands in most volume categories so there are fewer people in need of advice about which new products to try. In fact there are many more people who have been using products and services in those categories for years. If you want to affect brand shares, you need to talk to those people. They already know your name and what your promise is. Now you must get your brand more deeply involved with them. Let’s develop this discussion in the coming weeks. Copyright Christopher James Harrison. PO Box 41036 Nairobi 00100 Kenya