New field, New game for the marketers
Covid-19 and its tumultuous impact on our routine life is right within and around us. This impact will not wash away easily. The effects that will stay forever have already been coined as the ‘new normal’. “Everything is completely abnormal, but as long as we call it ‘normal’ it makes us feel better,” Jay Wexler, a Boston University law professor, said.
One impact that has already gained omnipresence is the host of Covid germinated terms and terminologies (like new normal) that have become a part and parcel of our daily conversations – a colloquial language of the entire planet.
Over the last 13-14 months, one such Covid germinated term which we have used and heard umpteen times is ‘social distancing’. Within this period, the term ‘social distancing’ has travelled fast across the spectrum – from one end of newness to the other end of normal.
As I observed its move on the spectrum, the marketer in me found a new learning, which I am going to share with you all in this article.
Marketing is majorly influenced by culture. Cultural nuances are studied closely and marketers build strategies that are well adapted to the culture of the place. Culture varies not just by place but also with changing time, which is very clearly exhibited in the current time of pandemic.
Language is an important measure of culture and we are seeing major changes in language through new words that we have started speaking during this global pandemic. Adam Cooper, a Northeastern University linguistics professor said, “Language is always in a state of evolution to meet the needs of its users.” Words are constantly added to the language to explain our world. This is also true for marketing, which focuses on meeting the needs of consumers and evolves continuously. Products get created by marketers that fit into the changing needs.
To adapt to the current Covid pandemonium, Merriam-Webster showed extreme agility and went on to include a batch of 20 covid-specific terms like contact tracing, community spread, super-spreader, social distancing, and self-quarantine. From coinage to inclusion of these terms in the dictionary happened in record breaking time. Thus, the timely identified and capitalized need immediately led these words to becoming most-searched on the dictionary website.
Now, it’s time for marketers to introduce products with same athletic pace to connect with these new words that reflect the shared human experiences as people around the globe grapple with a new way of life.
Connecting marketing with language and words can bring out a measure of culture and learnings can be derived from their inter-relationship, from understanding the impact they have on each other. Now the main focus of the article is on the word distance. Insights can be gleaned from the way the word ‘distance’ has covered its journey with different connotations in different times.
The dictionary meaning of the word ‘distance’ is the extent or amount of space between two things, points, lines, etc. It also means the state or fact of being apart in space, as of one thing from another; remoteness.
Now I will tell you how the meaning of ‘distance’ itself has changed over time and how marketers have played their role in this.
Philip Kotler has given a model, according to which every product has 5 levels – core, generic, expected, augmented and potential level. The core product level or benefit indicates the fundamental need or want that consumers satisfy by consuming a particular product or service. Now, as I don my marketing glasses, I see so many products and categories which satisfy the customer’s need to cover distance.
From the very first vehicle invented, the most crude one to the most jazzy automobiles of modern time to all futuristic technology loaded ones, they all have the same core product level of satisfying the customer’s basic need to cover distance – that is the physical distance which is measured in kilometers and other metric units. Developments witnessed in the automobile sector have been mind boggling since the first appearance of three-wheeled Benz Model no. 1 in 1886. The patent (number 37435) of Benz Motor Car may be regarded as the birth certificate of the automobile. In 135 years since, marketers of automobiles have touched all stated, unstated, latent, secret needs of customers and far beyond. New value propositions, flairs and frills, hi-tech and hybrid rule the wave, but ‘covering physical distance’ remains the core need.
Now I take you further ahead to show how this word ‘distance’ started changing its meaning.
In a developing country like India, where air travel had status appeal, there came a man with entrepreneurial gut. Captain G. R. Gopinath disrupted the sector by launching Air Deccan in 2003. This brand filled up a very relevant need gap by opening new sub-segment of budget airlines and bringing air travel within the affordability of wide Indian masses. Air Deccan could not survive but this segment of budget airlines grew into the mainstream business of the airline sector and credit definitely goes to the first mover marketer. Status always had an appeal. With changing lifestyle, time, comfort and luxury gained importance for customers.
Physical distance, instead of getting measured in metric units, started getting measured in hours spent. This was the new dimension which got added to the word ‘distance’. Faster modes of travel, covering longer distances in relatively less time indicated value to customers and thus brands were built around the proposition.
Death of physical distance appeared loud and clear.
Complacency is a crime in Marketing. Creations and innovations in automobile sector brought people physically close, as distances considered long, in terms of metric units, were getting covered within no time. Then came in another leap in the way ‘distance’ got viewed. There came in a fleet of innovations in telecom and communication devices through which voice gets heard and feelings get touched. Then marketers took us ahead into the world of video calling. So many features, devices and apps brought us face to face with our loved ones. The feeling of being afar completely disappeared.
Nothing like distance exists anymore.
Covid catastrophe hit us in 2020 and brought the entire world completely at the disposal of video platforms. Crisis is the adrenalin for innovation. New need gaps were identified by vigilant marketers and were filled in by fitting innovations. Collaborative platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, Blackboard Collaborate and Microsoft Teams turned into basic survival tools and were adopted widely for work, education and social interactions.
Distance as measured in metric units, as measured in time, had died but now it got reincarnated as ‘social distancing’, an essential Covid protocol. Even walking to next door neighbor's house has become a non-coverable distance. Not by any metric unit or time, but it is 6 feet which is the measure for ‘social distancing’ now as a new norm.
The term social distancing might seem new, with Merriam-Webster including it in the dictionary only in the Covid period of 2020. But social distancing dates back to 5th century BC, with the Bible containing references to the practice.
With this re-incarnation of distance into ‘social distancing’, a new field has opened up for marketers to play a new game, maybe with more tech power. It is time to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a better and stronger way. Recently, I experienced the digitally curated Jaipur Literature Festival 2021 and was completely enamoured by the way new technology paradigms were embraced with AI integrated, to unfold life-like intellectual extravaganza with a unique charm and beauty.
All around, in different news-papers we come across how AR i.e. Augmented reality, VR i.e. Virtual reality, Robotic technology is gaining importance in different sectors and being adopted by different brands, as shown in the news clippings attached below.
It clearly brings across, Virtual reality (VR), Augmented reality (AR), Robotic technology will provide most meaningful competitive edge to the marketers in this new age of ‘social distancing’. These technologies have already entered the Indian industries and have steadily started gaining foothold. Now the new world of ‘social distancing’ will witness exponential growth and usage of these technologies in varied forms.
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