#12: Unintended Consequences
Hanoi's Rats | Loneliness | Authenticity | Ludditing | Friction | Before & Now
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In this newsletter, I’m thinking about unintended consequences. The ones that impact consumer thinking and new behaviours, and the ones our playbooks don’t talk about.
In 1902, a rat infestation overwhelmed the Vietnamese city of Hanoi.
Several strategies to stop the rat swarms failed. So the authorities suggested a final solution - everyone in the city was to be given money for every rat killed.
You’d think it a pretty smart idea.
But it spawned a rat population boom.
Because everyone started breeding rats to claim more rewards.
This is an example of ‘second-order effects’: well-intended actions having unintended consequences, each result leading to another consequence, then another, and so on.
#1 Loneliness
Whilst we rush to crack the secrets of our collected data, and the tech and science of hyper-personalising experiences for our customers, I wonder:
Are we overlooking something?
Such as the basic needs of human nature and psychology.
There’s a repeating comment from graduates I work with (I paraphrase):
There is a lot wrong today - there’s fear - the environment, wars, another pandemic, and economic problems.
Yet there is so much more of everything, unlimited segmentation and infinitely more choice for us but hardly anything that can be shared.
We long for memories with friends and things that would create a special bond among our generation. We miss that our parents and grandparents had that.
There’s no doubt Gen Z feels isolated and disconnected. Much of their experiences are siloed, coming to them through their earbuds and ‘phone screens. They have personalised experiences - alone. And it’s adding to the mental health crisis.
We personalise and segment because it's good for our sales.
And that is what customers want, too. But because what one customer wants is different than what another wants, we're in content silos - on our own.
Our individual choices put us in silos because we want content our way, supporting views of the world aligned with our views (and the algorithms’ view of us).
Personalisation has brand benefits but in the extreme creates loneliness.
Ironically, there’s a brand benefit to social isolation.
I’m thinking what that means for CX.
Can we improve personalisation?
Is putting consumers into silos of loneliness an unintended consequence of our work?
Will we all be spending more and more time-consuming hyper-personalised, siloed content alone?
No. I don’t have the answers. But I hope I provoke some thinking.
Because customers long to belong. What a paradox.
This isn’t a paid ad or sponsorship, just me spreading the word about an interesting trend in the face of a crisis in mental health.
It’s not yet a truly global movement, but is one spreading quickly. If you’re interested in knowing more follow this link to their website. And join in.
#2 Authenticity
Michael Buble starred in this year’s Asda’s Xmas ad.
Asda is a major UK supermarket.
Watch the ad above.
Be honest.
Now you’ve seen the ad, do you think Michael Buble’s Christmas table was covered with Asda food?
No, of course not.
I’m not criticising him.
He took the money (it’s called work) and used it for his favourite food version of a slap-up Xmas dinner with family.
There are many examples of ‘influencers’ happy to be paid to wear a brand’s clothes for a TikTok, but then change back into what they like and prefer when the cameras stop rolling.
But change is coming.
Consumers are getting tired of this inauthenticity.
Just ask the CEO of Solo Stove.
They make fire pit stoves for the US market. According to reviews, the best fire pits.
Then they hired Snoop Dogg to do an Autumn influencer marketing campaign promoting their stove. (Yeah, I had to look him up, too…..)
And now I’m guessing that many of us are not Snoop’s audience.
It was an inauthentic attempt to muscle some of Snoop’s millions of followers over to Solo Stove.
Their sales hardly moved.
But there was a ton of activity.
First, a profit warning.
Then, a 50 per cent share price crash.
And finally, the sacking of the CEO.
(Hat-tip for this story from Peter Went)
Influencer marketing beats traditional advertising in its ability for desired traits of the influencer’s personality to be transferred over to the brand.
But brands are discovering that simply having a ton of followers doesn’t immediately equal success. What’s the use of having an arena full of fans if none of them can connect to the performer?
So it’s key to strike the right balance between authenticity and popularity.
Achieving Authenticity in Influencer Marketing: Best Practices
Select Trustworthy Influencers
Even the simplest of things carry unspoken meanings. From the pair of shoes you pick out in the morning to your smartphone’s brand sends a covert message and conveys a specific personality.
Select carefully, as the unspoken connotations of their content will ultimately play into how your brand is perceived. Don’t be blinded by high follower counts, as you can end up using your fire pit for keeping warm.
If they aren’t authentically aligned, your content will scream untrustworthy.
The implications:
Inauthentic influencers and brand inauthenticity are yesterday.
2024 will be about the re-emergence of authenticity.
Research: In Europe, less than 32 per cent of consumers trust influencer ads (Nielsen, 2022) and only 13 per cent of US consumers turn to influencers to inform their purchasing decisions (Oracle & Brent Leary, 2022).
Experts think the value of influencer marketing is at a crossroads – leading to discussions about the very future of influencer marketing.
Whether it’s a promise, a purpose, or empathetic employees, the winners will be brands that are authentic in their standing for something.
#3 Ludditing
Contrary to popular belief, the original Luddites were not anti-technology, nor technologically incompetent. Their argument was not with technology per se, but with the ways it was robbing them of a way of life.
Today, this distinction is sometimes lost.
Its more modern use is as an epithet for anyone who doesn’t wholeheartedly and unquestioningly embrace technological progress.
Technologists like Musk and Gates aren’t rejecting technology or innovation. Instead, they’re rejecting a worldview that all technological advances are ultimately good for society. This worldview optimistically assumes that the faster humans innovate, the better the future will be.
This “move fast and break things” approach toward technological innovation has come under increasing scrutiny with a growing awareness that, unfettered, it may lead to harmful consequences that a degree of forethought could help avoid.
Why Luddism matters
The modern-day Luddites are critical technologists. They are not opposed to technological progress; they are challenging lazy and self-serving definitions of technological progress and aware of the societal, environmental and economic dangers of blinkered innovation.
The Luddite Club is a group of tech-disillusioned Gen-Zers advocating using flip phones, crafting, hanging out in parks and reading real books. Screens are an anathema to the group, which sees them as a drain on mental health.
Other Gen Zers and Millenials are forming clubs or meeting up outside without smartphones and other digital devices just to share communing and fun and friends without digital distractions. In Europe, Slow Commerce (no digital checkouts, conversational staff) seems to be taking off.
A company called HMD is releasing a hot-pink-and-sparkly Barbie flip phone this summer that leans into the newer consumer trend - especially among Gen Z - of buying phones not connected to the internet to limit exposure to toxic digital content.
The implications:
Of course, consumers want the convenience of digital, but they are pushing back against what they feel is the continuing dehumanisation of daily lives. Brands are moving to recognise this as they accelerate efforts into Slow Commerce, IRL experiences, connectedness and simplified tech.
#4 Friction
It’s easy to see why making shopping as seamless as possible is so urgent for e-commerce companies when the average global cart abandonment rate is over 70 per cent.
It isn’t all about reducing friction in digital commerce.
Because the friction you’re removing can make it harder for your customer to buy.
A few months ago I wrote about Fogg’s behavioural theory.
His model shows when motivation is high, it’s ok for ability and prompts to be low. But when motivation is low, ability and prompts must be high.
Simply put, we accept friction when we really want (or need) something. In fact, it can help us.
Working out if the specific brand meets our wants sometimes takes time; sometimes it takes information; sometimes, it takes prompts.
If you remove a lot of the prompts, a lot of the information, and a lot of the opportunities for thinking time, it sounds good. Remove all friction. Yay!
Except.
Having the right amount of those things makes it easier for a consumer to buy.
Having one less button to click is nothing compared to having the confidence to go ahead and click it to begin with. Without any buyer remorse.
So, in context, friction can be valuable. They can help prompt behaviours that produce better results for our customers - and so for us.
The implications:
Research shows that consumers tend to value products more when they are obtained through effort - the “Ikea effect” - as the experience of effort can influence how people perceive the value and quality of a product or service.
Friction helps sellers select the right customers.
Friction to select the right ones is a familiar technique in the luxury goods market and in any context where a company wants prospective customers to demonstrate commitment. Ferrari makes it difficult to buy special-edition cars. Luxury fashion brands don’t mind fostering queues or complicating the purchase process by temporarily withholding prices, lengthening the checkout process, or other approaches. The simple logic behind these tactics is that only the customers who are most interested in the company’s products or most invested in the brand will find working through inconveniences and complications acceptable in the shopping journey.
When friction enables better decisions, customer satisfaction improves.
Using friction to give consumers a moment to pause and consider the implications of their purchases can avoid “buyer remorse” and encourage shoppers to choose the most appropriate option.
Don’t fall into the no effort, no friction trap by viewing all friction as negative. Not all time is created equal. Think of negative friction as anything that blocks or distracts customers from the purchase decision, and positive friction as anything that optimises deliberation. Think about the Fogg model.
#5 Before, Now, Next
Before.
We focused on integrating new digital technologies into everyday aspects of our consumer’s life.
It spawned direct-to-consumer commerce, chased a digital nirvana and many thought IRL would become a no-go zone.
Now.
We’ve shifted attention to optimising.
Brands, marketers, customer service, and customer experience embrace more speed, less friction, and simpler.
Yet ad platforms bombard consumers for clicks, and they feel stalked.
Yet the way we use Data makes the consumer feel invaded.
Yet contact centres still overly focus on efficiency, and customers feel ignored.
Yet tech is still focused on making a fast and easy sale, so it increasingly feels like a transaction.
CX’s unintended consequences
By becoming more digitally connected, we’ve created a growing need for human connection.
In the same way that the digital revolution has paradoxically boosted the appeal of human-centric experiences and digital detox, I think our psychological reality will drive demand for actual experiences that are human-led, human-curated, and offline.
Today’s ‘unplug’ trend will gather momentum.
The terms 'consumer’, 'customer' and ‘consumption’ are, I think, now aged concepts. Deliberately or unconsciously, most consumers are citizen activists - motivated by the influences of global purpose to community, privacy to values over value, identity to individuality, and convenience to experiences.
Now There is Next:
Nearly two-thirds of consumers say they have re-imagined what’s important in their life.
About sixty per cent say they consciously act on what’s happening globally and locally.
Consumers aren’t disrupting brands. They’re disrupting themselves.
They’re increasingly conscious of the traits that keep them human.
Such as Trust. Connection. Personal Growth. Recognition. Community. And Fun.
It’s both rebellion and reincarnation by consumers.
And we’re increasingly disconnected from them, unclear what we want our relationships with consumers to be.
This disconnect shows. 75 per cent of consumers don’t easily recall any favourite brand names. Brand polygamy is growing. A study by Accenture Research ranked ninety-five different attributes across six industries across the dimensions of convenience, trust, recognition, personal growth, fun and sustainability.
“The purpose of using digital technology is to help myself. I won’t let it control me. I will keep my conscience and be the master of myself”
Anon Consumer
Little wonder consumer trust in brands barely exceeds 1 in 2.
And yet, 68 per cent of us believe business should lead as a unifying force to create a shared identity, celebrating what brings us together and emphasizing our common interest to strengthen the social fabric, which is a positive.
Consumers yearn for meaningful brand relationships.
The great brands of this decade recognise this and will respond. They know if they fail they will be relegated to utility status, further driving today’s surge in polygamous brand relationships.
In delivering an elevated human experience, we can create meaningful connections - the ultimate piece in the engagement puzzle.
Next issue: The No-Brand Future