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Tangibilize the Intangible

Given the intangible nature of services, service products are often abstract in the minds of potential customers. Consequently, one of the principal guidelines for advertising a service is to make it more concrete. Insurance companies face this challenge on a daily basis—how to tangibilize the intangible? One possible solution for many insurance companies has been to utilize tangible symbols to represent their companies. Prudential  has “The Rock,” Merrill Lynch has “The Bull,” and GEICO has “The Gecko.” However, no insurance icon has ever been as successful as the Aflac  Duck!

The Aflac Duck campaign was created by Linda Kaplan Thaler, CEO/chief creative officer and Robin Koval, chief marketing officer/general manager of The Kaplan Thaler Group (KTG) Ltd. Their charge was to increase the public’s awareness of the Aflac brand. Aflac’s chair and CEO told Thaler, “I don’t care what you do, as long as you get people to know the name of this company.” The impetus behind the duck campaign  was based on KTG’s “big bang” theory—“if we allow a little illogic into our thoughts…we can break through the prison of current convention.” When pronounced audibly, Aflac sounds like a duck, so why not create a slightly annoying waterfowl (who hates to be ignored) to represent a company that is trying to make a splash in the marketplace?

Sources:

www.aflac.com, accessed 26 April 2005; Jerry Fisher, “Duck Season,” Entrepreneur, 33, 1, (January 2005), p. 67; Fran MatsoLysiak, “Aflac’s Quacking Duck Selected One of America’s Favorite Ad Icons,” BEST’S REVIEW, 105, 6, (October 2004), p. 119;

Aflac Youtube Opportunity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8orTQuG29Y accessed 5 March, 2015.

The suggested communication strategy to use when the product is intangible dominant is to surround the product with tangible evidence. Given this, why is the Aflac duck campaign a good idea?

Mistargeted Communications

Segmentation is one of the basic concepts of marketing. In essence, it suggests that a firm’s marketing efficiency can be improved by targeting marketing activities at specific groups of consumers who behave differently in some way toward the firm. Although segmentation is applied in both goods and service companies, the consequences of reaching an inappropriate segment with a part of the communication mix are far less serious for goods companies than for services. If the wrong group of consumers buys a particular brand of detergent, for example, it does not really affect the company making the detergent; sales are still being generated. Another example is that a product may have been developed for the youth market, but through some quirk of the advertising execution, the product has attracted some senior citizens.For example, take the Pepsi advertisement that portrayed the youthful effects of Pepsi being delivered to a senior citizens’ home by error instead of to the college fraternity house. Let’s say that the ad is interpreted by senior citizens that Pepsi will make them feel young again. Clearly, this was not the original intent of Pepsi, which targets the younger generation. Members of the group that misinterpreted the message visit the supermarket, buy the product, and use it in their homes. The negative consequences associated with the elder segment’s use of the product are few.

Suppose, however, that some of the wrong segment decides to buy the services of a restaurant. An upscale concept has been developed, but to launch the restaurant, management decides to have a price promotion, and the advertising agency develops inappropriate advertising. Additionally, through poor management, the advertising is unfocused and produces feature articles in the wrong magazines. The result is that the restaurant gets two types of customers: upscale, middle-aged couples and price-conscious groups of students. The former were the original target, and the latter were attracted by mistargeted marketing tactics. Unfortunately for the restaurant and for many other services, “other customers” are part of the product. The result is that neither segment enjoys the experience because of the presence of the other, and neither type of customer returns. Hence, the consequences of mistargeted communications for service firms, because of the shared consumption experience, are clearly more significant than the consequences experienced by traditional goods-producing firms.

Source:

Pepsi Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff3Q5Qp9FJ0 accessed 4 March, 2015.

Marketers will target market segments by using different methods which are:

• Psychographic: Grouping your customers into cultural clusters, social status, lifestyle and personality type.
• Decision Makers: Grouping your customers based on who decides to purchase your product within the company structure.
• Behavioral: Grouping customers by product usage. For example; light, medium or heavy users. This stage also factors in brand loyalty and the type of user.
• Geographic: Grouping customers by a specific area, such regions of the country or state and urban or rural.
• Distribution: Grouping customers based on where they go to purchase your product, such as online, store or through a catalog.
• Demographic: Grouping customers by age, income level, gender, family size, religion, race, nationality, language, etc.

Which segmentation methods present the greatest and least threat for mistargeted communications? What steps would you take to avoid targeting the wrong target market?