Trust-based stuff, the Truth and the Toilet Roll!
- adrianliley
- Nov 11, 2020
- 6 min read
Yes, it's the turn of the letter 'T' in the terrible, tantalising, twisted and thankless world of anti and postmodernist marketing.
(This is quite a long blog so put your feet up and prepare to be titillated and tormented for a few troubled minutes. I should add that I hope there might be a few chuckles along the way to lighten the tortuous load)
Incidentally, the picture opposite (I took it) is of a gentleman exhibiting true social responsibility as he trundles his 56 toilet rolls through Morrison's of Petts Wood earlier this year - note the large golfing umbrella just in case there is a light shower within a hundred miles of his Range Rover parked on double yellows outside. More on that later...
OK.... that out of the way, let's get down to business and the first anti-marketing T to be prodded here - TRUST-BASED MARKETING (TBM).
What is it? Well, put really superficially - and regular readers will know that I love superficiality - TBM relies on building relationships and establishing total trust between the buyer and seller rather than going for the buyer's throat with one hand while the other is exploring pockets for wallets or purses. The basis of TBM is building loyalty over the long term. It is the art of placing all information before the customer in an easy, friendly manner and letting him or her decide without any ‘visible’ pressure. TBM also creates customer trust in a variety of interesting ways. A few examples - first, if my dentist says a particular brand of toothpaste is the best, then I will go ahead and buy it because I trust the expert - the voice of authority. The same goes for a doctor, plumber, mechanic or builder. They clearly know more about their own specialised area than I do. So, I trust them and go ahead and do what they say and buy what they advise. Silly, I know.
There are other areas which create total trust. For example, we trust a long-established company rather than one which opened last week. We also trust businesses which are promoted by our heroes (e.g. sports people, TV personalities and actors) who put their faces to products and encourage their fans to trust the product too. We all know that the celebrity is getting some kick-back for this endorsement but this never seems to matter for lots of illogical reasons. We still all go out and buy the stuff. Then there is familiarity and frequency. If we are bombarded with TV commercials about a particular product we are, strangely enough, more inclined to trust it than a product which remains in the shadows of advertising.
TBM is best described as:
- Getting the customer’s attention, then interest
- Establishing a certain familiarity
- Creating an illogical trust
- Forming a binding relationship which will last a very long time
- Not worrying too much if you don't immediately get the sale
Another T - TRUTH... a somewhat fluid and subjective commodity in Trump/Johnson/Putin/Farage times. In the 21st century the golden rule is that your truth is the only truth. True anti-marketeers might argue with this - they are scrupulous when it comes to truth, since they believe there can only be one truth; a truth which is ‘whole’ and uncomplicated with no shady areas attached. An anti-marketeer would say that any darker patches will always come back to bite you, that is if you agree that patches have teeth! They believe that the ramifications of partial truths, exaggerations and even the tiniest lies will always haunt you in today’s digital, YouTube, Instagram age. However, anti-marketeers also acknowledge that truth can be a rather opaque commodity. One person’s truth can be another’s lie. We are now living in an age where truth is so 'flexible' that it is almost meaningless. Think Donald Trump. His truths are very much for the moment - it’s his subjective take on any situation. Everything that contradicts his lavish assertions is instantly rejected as fake news or lies. In Donald Trump's world we are surrounded by so much information that it is almost impossible to pick out the real truth.
But, not to worry – this does not matter too much. Tomorrow, everything will all be forgotten. We live for the instant - the current wave of truths and lies clogging up our news channels. And tomorrow there'll be another wave of information and misinformation. A truth today might be a lie tomorrow... and then the truth the next day.
Let's move on to the real hero of 2020 - THE TOILET ROLL - our final T. Yes, the common toilet roll. So often just the last thing to chuck into the shopping trolley at the end of the week’s shop. Well, this was its day. 2020 became the year of the toilet roll for reasons which few could have predicted. As legend has it, it all began in Australia. Not the disease, I hasten to add, but 'toilet paper wars'. A short video of two women fighting over a twelve-pack went viral and tweaked the conscience of the world. And so, the humble toilet roll became the first piece of flotsam that consumers could focus their survival instincts upon as the ship started sinking. For six insane weeks, toilet rolls became more valuable than money, gold, platinum, diamonds and even Bitcoins. Rolls were put up on e-bay with three figure starting prices. Consumers began stockpiling. Photographs of offenders with loaded trolleys appeared on the front pages of all newspapers under incendiary headlines. The toilet roll became the new currency and everyone wanted it. And, of course, toilet roll producers met their annual targets almost overnight as shelves were emptied of rolls within seconds of stores opening. So, why the toilet roll? Some superficial but pithy answers here...
1. Because of peer-pressure. Any queue for a commodity will create a buzz and then a frenzy, especially in times of stress and anxiety
2. Because the media kept showing pictures of consumers grabbing as many rolls as they could
3. Because people were filmed fighting over packs on social media
4. Because it was something the panicked consumer could focus all pent-up frustration and anxiety upon
5. Because ‘someone’ said it ‘might’ become scarce (which it did, of course, because of the above points)
6. Because there was a fear that at a time (in the future) of total lockdown, there would be no possibility of venturing out to buy toilet rolls. So, better panic-buy now and to hell with everyone else
In many ways, this was a strange case of the media and online machine creating accidental value for the commodity. Without constant online and mainstream news exposure of consumers queueing, grabbing and fighting over the toilet roll, it would arguably not have gained such dramatic importance and prominence. However, the truly amazing thing about our toilet roll was that it exhibited no medical benefits and was not a pain-reliever or a cure to the virus in any way at all. It had no direct relevance to the symptoms or the results of Coronavirus. It was just a commodity that people did not want to run out of if the whole country closed down one rainy morning in May. Experts shouted loudly that there was no need for a toilet roll panic – warehouses were adequately stocked until Doomsday. But the herd did not care about facts or logic. It simply watched fellow consumers fighting over a commodity and responded accordingly. If people believed it was vital, then it had to be.
An interesting experiment at the outset would have been to create an illogical need for something like marmalade and to place several actors in a few busy supermarkets greedily loading jars into trolleys. Then film everything and place a short 20-second clip on every social media platform possible. If a fight over a jar of Golden Shred could be staged, then even better. The big question then would be: Would the herd respond in the same way as it did with toilet paper, or would it just ignore the marmalade? I would like to think that it would react because it would prove that illogicality, chaos, randomness and base survival instinct are very much a driving force behind consumer habits. Wouldn’t that be wonderful… and dreadful at the same time?
The ultimate final irony is that people quickly realised the folly of their ways and spoke with embarrassment of their toilet roll hoarding afterwards. However, when talk of a second wave started permeating the web, what happened? Exactly the same again – a toilet roll stampede for absolutely no logical reason. What this all serves to prove is that the customer/consumer is a strange beast which should be treated with caution, care and a large dollop of disdain.
And that's brief toe-dip into the world of the letter T in one man's anti-marketing world. We move on next to the smooth, spacious, squelchy savannah of the letter S.
For more on this sort of malarkey you could do a lot worse than getting yourself a copy of this piece of modest genius...
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