MARKETING LESSONS FROM THE LAB

By Venkatesh P (Lecturer in Marketing)

One of the greatest challenges being a marketer is to predict consumer behavior. Lets look at our own buying patterns. Don't we find so many factors affecting what we buy? Recollect the latest shopping you did, and see for yourselves how many off-the-list products you have bought. Why did you buy them? Recently I went to a near by shop to buy some butter. While the shopkeeper was weighing the butter, I just stretched my neck (strained from the daily scooter ride) and my eyes spotted 'Cup-O-Noodles'. I was feeling hungry and I bought it. I think that was the first time ever I bought that product. The product was never in the visible region, still something told me to buy. Of course you could say it was my 'hunger', but why choose that particular brand. Well something told me to buy. What's that something? Well when the consumer himself is unsure as to what was that something, how can a marketer know that 'something'?

There are literally a million reasons to why we buy a particular product (or Brand to be specific). That's exactly the reason why the market is cluttered with a million variations of the same product. (variations could be tangible or intangible)

Gone are the days when you thought of toothpaste, you thought of only one brand. Now the market is more cluttered and you can think of other toothpastes too for whatever (!) reason. So how do we, as marketers direct a consumer only to the brand that we want them to be attracted to? How do we get our brand in contact with the consumers?

Look at all the marketing tools that we as marketers use. Sometimes marketers waste precious dollars on ineffective tools. Sometimes an accidental campaign might click and might have huge response from the consumers. How do we analyze (or gauge) well before the implementation of a marketing exercise, the effectiveness of it?

Well, I guess there have been a lot of questions. Now its time to re-look at the 'Marketing' concept from a different angle and learn valuable lessons. Lets go to the lab where the chemist is working on a reaction.

A + B temp PressureC + D

Chemistry has established that 'A' and 'B' can react with each other in many different ways, but only that reaction that yields 'C' and 'D' is what is called a 'fruitful' reaction. If that be the case, then what about the yield? Obviously low if the reaction is not directed properly. How do we direct a reaction to give high yields? This is where the chemist with all his acquired knowledge of organic chemistry, physical chemistry and inorganic chemistry, come to teach us marketing.

The chemist does something intrinsic to the reactants that favor predominantly the reaction he is interested in. He simply makes the reactants more attractive towards each other the way they need to be attracted (to give C and D). Technically speaking the chemist equips the reactants with some 'functional groups' so that the reactants not only get attracted, but in the most fruitful manner. This increases the yield of the reaction.

Lets now look parallel at a market, which is our reaction chamber. We have the two reactants 'consumers' and the 'products'. As marketers we expect a sale and that too of high volumes. We also (like the chemist) manipulate the product and do something intrinsic to it. This we call as “Brand”ing. So 'Branding' is nothing but adding suitable 'functional groups' to increase 'attraction'.

On what basis do we 'Brand' our product? The chemist says he adds the functional groups to a reactant based on the behavior of the other reactant. Chemistry, again, has well established the behavior of elements basing on the position they occupy in a periodic table. This periodic table is likened to the segmentation marketers do in the market place (viz. demographic, psychographics). Basing on this segmentation, the marketers try and predict the behavior of that particular segment of consumers. And all the marketing efforts revolve around this understanding of segmentation. Same is the case with the chemical reaction – without a thorough knowledge of the segment the reactants belong to, designing a reaction is very difficult.


About the Author
M.Sc (chemistry)
MBA (marketing)
currently working as lecturer in marketing, in the department of management studies, SRM Easwari engg. college, Chennai-89