AHHHHHHHH..It’s good to be back. I was dealing with the loss of my mother so I needed to regroup ... back to the madness that lives inside my head;)

Talk to any garden variety hippie :) and they’ll tell you that they wake up everyday and set their day’s intentions. They’ll go into great detail about what they want to happen that day and they will visualize it happening and set their intentions. While to some this may seem like a total waste of time - it isn’t. Furthermore, there is a lot to be learned regarding the power of intent and how it relates to what we do for a living

Hold on. Here comes a bit of an A.D.D diatribe - I apologize in advance:)

Camus once stated that, “We can’t create experience, we must undergo it.” If we attempt to translate that into a relevant statement for marketers it simply means that all we can do is open up streamlines of opportunities for consumers with the programs we build. When I say that, I mean to say that we can craft a fully IMC plan with the INTENTION of having a consumer have the most desirable brand experience. However, we are limited to only creating the possibilities that this experience will occur. As Camus stated, we can’t actually create the experience. If we could then every marketer in the world would be touting ridiculously amazing case studies because every IMC plan that was created would turn out exactly as intended - a great experience!

The reality, of course, is that there are different modalities of experience - every consumer experiences marketing programs differently - regardless of the marketer’s intent. We are all very different creatures, and furthermore each of us is simply a summation of our own life experiences. Therefore, there are no two people that are identical - even identical twins aren't truly identical.

The question is simple. Why, as a marketer, should we care about consumer intent. Really, it has everything to do with entire behavior patterns ... but. simply put, it is the BIGGEST difference between understanding our audience to determine if we are delivering a brand experience when our audience will be most receptive to it. It’s the difference between consumers rolling out their welcome mat or curling up to an intrusive marketing effort. In part 2 I’ll talk about how to insure you do it right by exploring the consumer’s journey.

Comments (0)