Market research vs pet owners. When the furry guys get a word in.
Dorothy said unequivocally that they were also right. A bland diet, she said, usually meant that a lot was lacking in substance. The smells were the result of processing techniques, and the monotony was as likely to produce as much lack of interest in the animals as it was in people. She produced her solutions. Dog bones, for tooth care, with specially treated dried meat. A smorgasbord of biscuits, of different textures and tastes, with painstakingly correct nutritional balances, including grasses and chamomile. Organ meats and tissues, in a marrow jelly, similar to natural diet. Special puppy and kitten foods, and all-round treatments, in edible toys for emotional comfort. Mixed grains and seashells for birds. A manual for pet owners of everything except rhinos, as far as Al could tell. A list of symptoms to look out for in pets. Stain removal advice. A help line to her firm, and a web address, with links to Vets Online. How to remove pet food from your wardrobe, friends and relatives.
Then she got technical. Al was wondering when she was going to produce a pair of stone tablets, or an Ark. Her delivery was good, too, and she could talk to the consumers as clearly as he could. Never needed to repeat herself, either. Her enthusiasm was like a revelation out of a text book for Inspiring Your Customers. People left talking about the products, after having spent three hours talking about the products. Bill mentioned demographics. Al found a soap box.
“There aren’t any. Pets are across the spectrum. The specific needs differ, but the basics are the same. There is such a thing as a young family demographic, and a “pets as therapy position”, but it’s generally pretty much in the “what do we buy for the dog” mode.
I’m glad you brought up demographics. That’s something people need to un-learn. Market research is not the infallible thing it insists it is. Have a look at the entertainment industry. They survey people to death and produce garbage that doesn’t rate. We have to watch the result. Some guys in an apartment, whoopee, how original. Then there’s the “let’s sell to the 18-24 demographic” religion. Yeah, right, sell to people without money, and better things to spend it on anyway. You wind up with a very crappy and unreliable clientele. Sales campaign over, loss of interest, you’re carrying a ton of stock that nobody can be paid to take. Like cell phones. Big boom of buying, saturation, consumers move on to other things, stagnation. Add gimmick, like video phones, same routine.
“Sales” means sell. If you don’t move your product, you lose. This was to find out, for example, what people don’t like, as much as what they do. In this case, smelly, ugly-looking third rate garbage masquerading as pet food. They care about their pets. They also care about the hideous messes in those cans. You go up to somebody and say “isn’t this wonderful”, and expect to get an answer that means something. What? Yes, it’s wonderful? No, it’s not wonderful? Go and ask, “What do you think of this?” and you eventually get some sort of opinion. There’s a lineage of bad logic to the worst parts of market research. Back in the 50s they started targeting women as the main core domestic consumers. They still do, even now the whole nuclear family demographic has gone. A whole society living on standardized sales spiel. “You need a house to put all this stuff in.” “Your sex life depends on your dandruff.” “Think of all the personal empowerment in this soap.” In animals, it’s called imprinting. People grow up with this world view.
Market thinking regularly doesn’t allow for “I don’t want this.” You have to want it, you’ve spent your entire life being told you want it. Yet for some reason people don’t buy the entire stock of every place they visit. They look for bargains. They try to budget. They do, regularly, say no. Meaning they try to avoid the entire object of a sales pitch. Market research is based on behaviorism, as much as sales info and actual consumer research. They start from, and work to, known factors. Shakespeare would never be the result of market research, because he’s behaviorally outside the ball park. Shakespeare still sells, five hundred years later. Point made.
We just had some people say that they were actually not very happy about stuff they’ve been buying for years. They’ve spent thousands, maybe, on inferior product. They’re habituated buyers, too, buying brands on historical grounds. That is one of the valid points in behavioral buying, but it doesn’t cover alternatives. I’d be prepared to bet that those people will at least look twice at their buying, just because we told them there was an alternative, and probably experiment with new stuff because they just spent three hours criticizing their own buying patterns.
Dorothy’s stuff came off well in the comparison, so some sales will definitely result. Behaviorism in marketing is a dicey proposition. I won’t say it’s all crap, but it is prone to fall over pretty badly if you don’t make contact with the coal face. Not all sales campaigns are successes. Not all ads are winners. It does depend on actual sales to consumers, and there’s no point in thinking otherwise. On the basis of what we’ve seen, though, I’d say the product lines will do pretty well. We seem to have covered the angles with the products, rather than with hype. Dorothy, good products do sell themselves. We’re just making sure people can find them.”
“I thought Dorothy was the most credible part of the sessions,” said Carla, who’d been expecting difficulty with the vets, as professionals.
Dorothy looked slightly startled then reverted to her goddess-vibes, according to Al’s brain, which was now racing through the possibilities of a credible Dorothy. He equated that with fish just maybe possibly being able to swim. He had to say it.
“I’ve noticed that Dorothy doesn’t bother with “levels of communication” and “talking to the demographic” and so on. She just comes up with something fully comprehensible and quite irrefutable. Strange, really, in such a nice person.”
“Rather disturbing, actually,” said Bill.
Dorothy threw a packet of sugar at him, and went on demurely,
“Bill’s been disturbed for about the last 32 years, to my knowledge. Comes to that, maybe I did have something to do with it. He was a perfectly normal border collie when I met him.”
“Seems to have gone downhill a bit,” commented Carla. “His coat’s not a shiny as when I met him.”