SAMRA yields insight for the practising marketer

One of the most interesting for marketing strategists was the paper entitled 'The Consumer Backlash' by Jacqui Greeff, Research Director at De Facto.

"Several mega-trends are converging to produce a challenging landscape for the marketers of tomorrow. The impact of these trends is seen clearly in the form of an increasingly resistant consumer."

The accelerating rate of change and the need for marketers to adapt and thrive were interconnecting strands throughout the presentation.

Contributing factors that create and augment this consumer backlash include the growing marketing overload, anti-globalisation, the information age, corporate accountability and the afore-mentioned accelerated rate of change.

According to Greeff, "Marketers are making more noise as they discover new media channels and new types of advertising."

The thin dividing line between acceptance by the consumer and irritation, consists of how much benefit and relevance there is in the advertising content. This is a very thin dividing line and the boundaries are not set the same for different market segments, products and media types.

Anti globalisation is a fact of marketing life and has overlapped with opposition to American values that are perceived as being imposed on the rest of the world.

The information age which has become synonymous with the Internet, has changed people's attitudes to information and commercial messaging. Younger generations are more sceptical and the global village concept means that info is shared far faster than ever before.

"Corporate Accountability has spawned the corporate governance industry but being a good corporate citizen is not enough, one must be seen to be a good corporate citizen," says Greeff. This provides opportunities for marketers to stay involved with corporate governance on an extended level of marketing the client, which in turn adds to the marketing noise aimed at consumers.

The accelerated rate of change is aided by information flow with the result that backward societies are more resistant to change and the gap widens between information rich societies and those with less access to the information age.

More consumer resistance translates into less marketing productivity and consumers become more difficult targets. "Consumer resistance manifests in both passive and active forms with the modern consumer having access to communication technology that aids in both protesting as well as organising consumer solidarity," adds Greeff.

Active consumer resistance can lead to legislation if consumers are angry enough but passive resistance can be harder to combat as it is not readily apparent. This can take the form of tuning out as well as the growing critical mindset in advert evaluation.

"Resistance increases in proportion to intrusion," says Greeff, "and the challenge is for marketers to research which market segments respond to out of the box thinking and which don't."

The continued use of saturated marketing models prevents advertising and marketing from affecting the client bottom line positively and effectively.

"While there is a need to respond to this consumer backlash, a quick response is highly unlikely until the financial effect is felt," says Greeff.

Greeff concluded with some ideas for response which focused on marketers getting to know their consumers better. Being sensitive to feedback, being responsible about the brand and some form of self regulation could go some way towards responding to the ongoing challenge of the more sceptical consumer.