ask and you shall know

This post was written in Igatpuri but uploaded from Vizag.
I am trying to catch a couple of days of rest and relaxation in the midst of all the chaos around me. The chaos is my doing and I love every moment of it. within a short span of a couple of months I am doing an all India research trip meeting customers, business partners and employees across India in an attempt to find out the soul of the broking market and the findings are amazing, startling at times and at times I want to kick myself for not seeing it before. So many times when we sit in Mumbai and hypothesise about the kind of customers we might have, we like most others take references from our immediate surroundings and create marketing insights out of these which we action. I feel like an idiot. In the past when we were drafting emailers for our customers I relied too much on long copy and the play on the English language. One big insight is that most of our customers dont really understand or know too much English. I haven’t had more than a couple of interviews in English as I understand it. Those who understand it are also comfortable not talking in it. Beyond Mumbai, they seem to be thinking, talking and interacting in their mother tongue. Even in places such as Pune and Nashik the clientele is largely happy in vernacular.
If I looked carefully enough and seen the signs I would have noticed this long time back. All one has to do is look at the comments and forums and check the language. People are conversing in the English they are comfortable in and it’s not the English I know. It’s full of grammar and typos and with a good mix of local words. English is purely the language of writing it is not the language of conversation. The qwerty key board has ensured we write in it but has not ensured we think in it. India is conversing in its own language. What does this mean for advertising and communication? The new brief for my agencies is to write from my daughter’s English text book. You may not use any word not found in that.
There are these and many more insights that can be had by talking to people across the country. This has been an extremely enlightening period for me. My day typically starts at 7 am nd ends by around 12 midnight. The whole day consists of meeting people, talking, thinking, ratifying and junking theories. No matter how different people are the core of what they are is the same. We can look for differences across the spectrum of clients and that’s the easiest thing to do, but it does not take much to see that at a particular level they are the same. A few threads run through them and that define them as my customers. Thanks to my teaching in the colleges I have constantly reinforced to my class and hence to myself as well. The best way to put basics in your head is to try and drill it to 60 kids every year. I am so thankful to them. Almost as thankful as I am to Dharen Chaddha.
These days he comes so often to me in my mind. I see the rubbish being thrown about and remember his lessons, his methodologies and his clarity of thought. One of his biggest contributions to my thought process is to belive in my research and not to theorise outside of it. Hence what I see I say, and what I don’t see, I refrain from commenting. Some basics that I remember clearing with him years ago come back to help me again and again. To use relationship with the category as opposed to segmentation, which is contrary to what most marketing text books preach.
The power of doing research yourself while understanding the market cannot be underestimated. I find it funny to see marketing managers relying on the research presentation instead of their own eyes and ears. Getting out of your comfort zone and meeting clients at their own liars contributes tremendously to our understanding. And those seeking to contribute without the effort come across so shallow. Yesterday was an interim presentation in which we had two senior resources who were trying to understand from the presentation on the state of the market. they came across as tremendously shallow and surprised, while those who have had the good fortune to be in the market were able to put the presentation in better context. Of course it did not help that while the two extremely talented ladies in research did a great job in researching but an absolute bummer of a job in putting the presentation together. I guess they were too used to putting together different segments, plenty of stupid insights and were unable to string a line together. I guess most companies want that. Give me differences, not what is common. They want to take apart every small segment and niche. I really don’t understand it as a base for a broad over arching marketing thought. But forget it. Let me not get too critical. I too know little and what little I know is also open for debate, discussion and plenty of learning.
What I do know is that too many people fart too much knowing too little. And too many people base their strategy by superficially knowing too little of those in and around themselves. I am happy and proud that I have forced, coerced and ensured that my team gets into the market themselves and see what the truth is. As I keep telling them, the company is dumb. They will be happy with whatever we give them, but it is up to us to know what we are doing, why we are doing and base our strategies and thought process on something we have found out. Even at the end of it all if we get five immediate action points, most research would have paid off.