In Marketing: Listen or Observe? — Diego Gaminde
Should we listen to what consumers tell us, or is it better to directly observe their behaviors to make marketing and business decisions?
The answer is to find the balance. However, it is very important to know well what these two terms consist of in order to understand them and complement each other.
The best way to visualize it is with an EXAMPLE:
Nowadays the healthy world, physical exercise and the healthy lifestyle are very important topics to most people.
Specifically, sugar drinks have been one of the products that have suffered most the consequences and criticisms of the public. To such an extent that many people have completely stopped consuming products like Coca-Cola, Fanta, RedBull etc. due to their sugar content and “unhealthy features”… Lets see some real opinions:
As we can see in the image above, if we ask and listen, we will find a large number of people who will tell us that they do care about their health and that they consider this kind of beverages very unhealthy.
However, it is a big mistake to keep only this perspective because if we observe the following graph we will realize that reality does not match with what consumers tell us:
As we can see, consumption of Monster energy drink, which in addition to sugars, fats and other compounds contain taurine, has increased in sales since 2015.
This example shows the key of knowing how to combine Listening with Observation. Because although people manifest that sugar and energy drinks are unhealthy, Monster continues to grow in sales each year.
Conclusion
In marketing it is very important to listen to consumers opinions through different channels (face-to-face, at the point of sale, social listening on social networks, etc.) But it is equally or almost more important to observe reality as in the case of Monster sales to have a real and holistic approach of a situation.
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Diego Gaminde Montesino Espartero, Digital Marketing professional.
