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| Cooperative Bank had this strategy in mind when they started the “little account for big people.” |
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“How do you plan for your organisation?” a reporter once asked the Sony Founder Mr Morita Akio. “I plan for two hundred and fifty years.” He replied
“How do you achieve that?” “Patience” he said
In this era of cutthroat competition, companies have forgotten one critical element: the future. Most are pre-occupied with the present and marketers have made it a policy to look at immediate concerns. So the long-range goals take the back seat in the boardrooms. Companies should take a close look at the children, i.e. the next generation of consumers.
Children are among the population that organisations have left aside, leaving only those that produce their commodities to channel marketing activities to them. Each year this group starts to buy shaving cream and pampers, joining the major league of consumers.
Organisations that are planning on what to do in the next a hundred years should be seriously thinking about children. Apart from being members of the decision-making unit as influencers, users, initiators and sometimes deciders, they end up being purchasers.
Colgate-Palmolive has been doing this and reaping from it bountifully. An analysis of Colgate’s toothpaste advertising shows their target group is — children. This has made Colgate the generic name for toothpaste. The resounding pillar of this is that the children grow up and carry this behaviour of buying the toothpaste into their adulthood. They have stuck to this, and milked loyal customers from the cradle to the grave. The end result: a future market has been secured.
All rebel leaders in the world attest to this and they in fact practice it. This intonation is so strong the world has come to embrace it. The lives of Stalin, Mao and Hitler speak volumes of this. Hitler went the expensive way to build an army, which took a lot of time and resources. Mao and Stalin started a revolution; in fact, they started it by selling their ideas to children. Children were given the “red books” and were taught to kill their own pets accustoming them to murder. This can work for the organisations that want to positively market their products and services to children and for generations to come.
Children’s memory is razor-sharp, which brings nostalgic feelings of days gone by using a particular product. Cooperative Bank had this strategy in mind when they started the “little account for big people.” These children will have a ball of memory in their life with the activities that they are exposed to like the annual meetings. They may remain account holders for the rest of their lives. The bank can easily replace its clientele who pass on with the children growing up.
Reminder advertisement can serve the same purpose because it creates an image of the product within the minds of the children. And they replay it when about to make a purchase. They will hold dear the dreams of having money to buy the products or services and or even work for the organisation. Using these skillfully, companies might do this through sponsoring events that go with benevolence, charity, might and power. This is what people adore and children are no exception.
Recently, organisations have been seen to tiptoe towards that direction. We have seen the Dettol Heart Run, Operation Smile, Zain Africa challenge and many more. Children or students are emotional and rational beings; they respond to gestures and will always remember an act even if done to another human being. Just as John Maxwell says, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” The same way customers will always have an attachment to the companies that respond to the basic needs of the society.
Effective marketing must focus on the present, but not forget about the future. Companies must plan like they will never run out of business and place a system that will ensure the needs of each generation is catered for at a profit. The only way to capture the future is to have those who will control the future decisions and purchases.
The little people will have grown up and will remember their foes and friends. They will have their own decisions to make and their own cash to procure goods. Smart companies will give them an idea (a revolution) of where and how to purchase their goods. The laggard will start a war when the children have matured, which will be costly and sometimes bruising. Clever organisations will invest in the future where everyone is going to spend the rest of their lives.
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