WHEN CONSUMERS ARE WRONG

Most consumers do not use products the way they were intended to be, feels Ramesh.
So should product.

Ramesh rolled over and stretched out, letting out a low deep howl that marked
his waking up. Through the window came the sound of clothes being beaten with
a washing bat. This sound had punctuated his childhood Sundays, mingling
lyrically with the smell of rasam boiling in the kitchen and the drone of
Akashvani from the Philips radio. Thirty years on, almost none of the sounds and
smells had changed in Uncle Vaitheeswaran Iyer's house on Koil Street, Salem.
Uncle's Pillayar House was modern in many ways - even by metro Mumbai
standards. It had three Sony television sets, a Whirlpool washing machine,
assorted music systems (while one played the Suprabhatam in one room, the
other played A.R. Rahman in another), Oral B mechanical toothbrushes (with
little stickers bearing names Prakash, Raju, Nikhil, Appa, because Uncle V had
found only blue ones in Singapore's Mustafa) and a state-of-the-art IBM
computer with a sticker of Lord Ganesha on the monitor. The kitchen had an LG
refrigerator and a microwave oven which Chitti (aunt) never used, but the city-
bred daughters-in-law did, to warm up The Hot Breads snacks that were brought
by visitors from Bangalore.

In the midst of such modernity, some things had not changed, not because
Chitti and Chittappa at 70 and 75, belonged to the 1930s, but because even the
younger ladies of the household swore by them. The washing bat for instance.
Older daughter-in-law Valli, MA (Politics), Annadurai University, said: "Whatever
you say, Ramesh, till you beat the clothes they don't get clean." Then what did
the washing machine with its agitator system do? "That is very good for the rest
of the job - rinsing and drying," said Valli. Likewise, despite the mechanical
toothbrushes, there sat in the bathroom a tin of toothpowder. Ramesh smiled.
As a boy of seven, when he came to Pillayar House for the summer, his aunt
would cup his chin in a vice-like grip and gently scrub his teeth with pink
Nenjangud toothpowder. Initially, he would protest, but by the third day, he had
started to like its queer powdery sweet taste.

Ramesh was a sales manager with a large multinational and sold detergents and
soaps - something that amazed Chittappa, who unfailingly asked each time:
"Then why did you go to IIT, my boy?" On a visit to the southern markets, he
had taken a detour to visit Pillayar House, and seeing this coexistence of old and
new, he got thinking. For example, Chittappa first brushed his teeth with his
forefinger using toothpowder, and then with Colgate toothpaste and an Oral B
brush. Just because he felt toothpaste did not clean plaque as well as
toothpowder did. Neither did it clean between the teeth, he felt. So he used
toothpicks to clean the areas between his teeth. No, Chittappa had not heard of
dental floss; Colgate did not show it on TV and if Colgate spoke nothing of it,
then it was not worth knowing about, he reasoned. Ramesh found the argument
stunning. Yet other products not spoken of on TV were lying around the house.
For Nagaratnam Govindrajan on TG Street stocked Yardley talc, imported
biscuits and, occasionally, Ovaltine. 

Pillayar House was now turning out to be a pot-pourri of thoughts for Ramesh
because what he observed there raised questions, albeit without answers, that
his city-focussed consumer habit researches had not unraveled. Valli's kitchen,
for example, was spotlessly clean. If it wasn't for the rasam boiling away, he
would have smelled the Domestos. On the sink's edge sat a jar of Pril liquid
detergent, a bar of Vim and a plastic cup with three scourers: a pink plastic wire
scourer, an almost new 3M green scourer and another near threadbare one.
"This is interesting," he said to Valli. "Why so many?" he asked. As Valli
explained, the newer 3M was for kadhais, the older one was for steel utensils
("new ones are far too abrasive for steel, so what I do is when it gets slightly
old, I use it for steel and take out a new one for kadhais") and the plastic one
was for dislodging stubborn burnt food from vessels. While they all did look
overused, Valli felt the scourers still had usable 'life' left. No, Valli did not
imagine that with everyday use the scourer collected tiny particles of this and
that which bred bacteria. Neither could Valli estimate how long she used a
scourer before retiring it.

There was something else which Valli did which made Ramesh ponder. She
emptied some Pril into an old Brylcreem jar and topped it with water. She used
this solution for washing her dishes. "Why do you do that?" asked Ramesh. "To
avoid wastage," said Valli. But did such a diluted version actually clean her
dishes he asked. Not only had she never doubted this, but she also used the
once-dipped scourer across 5-6 utensils. "It still has soap, see?" she reasoned,
squeezing the scourer to reveal foam. Does all foam have cleaning ability,
wondered Ramesh, pinching the foam that had no soapy feel. No, Valli did not
think about this because her brands only got so far as to exhort her to use them
and that she did. Her brands never spoke about usage.

Why did brands only talk about attributes or what the brand can do, but not
what it cannot do, or how it should not be used, wondered Ramesh. And this is
what he asked some of his marketing colleagues. Some said, when a brand talks
about what it cannot do or how it could not be used, it loses face. But Anuj in
marketing said: "There is a certain inertia among people to read what appears
on a pack! So much so, that even if instructions do appear on the pack, the
feeling that its verbosity invokes is, 'I can fix it, I can figure it out'. Which is
why, we have a whole array of behaviours when it comes to knowing a product
fully or using it correctly." Anuj was almost certain that people became dull
when faced with instructions or manuals. "Or anything that involves reading
before taking a decision," he said. "Why, even in a restaurant, most people will
call for the menu and then after staring at it for a while, they end up asking for
the same tried and tested fried rice and chilli chicken boneless!"

Okay, all that was true and marketing had observed behaviours to this extent,
felt Ramesh. But having observed that, didn't manufacturers wonder what this
behaviour meant and, therefore, what they needed to do to help the consumer
overcome the inhibition? More than that, if they observed a consumer during a
usage situation, they could find numerous ways to correct faulty usage of the
product and thus derive better value. "Take a detergent," said Ramesh. "Do
buyers read all the printed matter on the pack? They probably get put off by
declarations on the pack, which laud the brand without realising that the reader
has already purchased the brand and needs no more exhortation to use it or
even buy it. But what packs often go on to exhort are highlighters in the powder
that will add sparkle to the clothes, serious little detergent fellows that will scoop
out the dirt, etc. So she says: Okay, I know all that! I think this explains why
Valli and her kind never read the pack!"

Anuj shrugged. "It's the same thing: inertia," he said. "Who is the point of usage
consumer or user of the detergent? Typically it is the housewife, who trusts her
experience more than the instructions and says: 'I can figure it for myself' and
she puts in two spoonfuls anyway. Then looking at the quantity of clothes and
the seemingly disproportionate detergent, she adds some more, thus validating
her theory, 'I can figure it'."

But did consumers really figure it all out, wondered Ramesh. So clothes may
come out of the wash looking clean and smelling good; but is it as clean as the
detergent can enable with right use? Buyers of deodorant sprays were known to
spray the deo onto their clothes! Deo sprays often said, spray under arms,
which, in any case, is different from saying don't spray on clothes directly, felt
Ramesh. "I do think a consumer would respond to a 'do not' caveat, better than
a 'do'," he said. Which explained why his wife and Valli (he was alarmed to
discover) were not clear what their detergent recommended. Instead Valli had
said: "Over time and with experience I have adjusted to one spoonful."
Adjusted! Or there was that subtle distrust; as his wife had said: 'They will say
use two spoonfuls, after all they want to sell more, but one is enough!' Ramesh
now said: "Yes, there is a certain inertia among consumers to read or even
believe the fine print, but likewise, there is also an inertia among manufacturers
to address quirks in consumer behaviour resulting in poor end delivery by a
brand. Manufacturers feel consumers won't read; consumers feel 'I can figure it
out'."

Ramesh felt that manufacturers needed to watch consumers in action and

rewrite their instructions. "Isn't that also part of brand building?" he asked. For
instance, Uncle V complained that his cordless phone did not work as well as it
promised; within minutes of a call, there were distortions in the reception.
Ramesh found that after every use, the phone was diligently placed back on the
charger. When he said that all chargeable batteries must be recharged only after
maximum discharge, Uncle V was not convinced. Even after Ramesh read out:
"The batteries should be completely charged for the first time, before use and
subsequently, they should be charged only after maximum discharge. This is not
just healthy for the battery life, but it also helps to maintain the charge/usage
time of the battery", Uncle V shook his head and said: "Maybe, but I think that
fellow in Chennai sold me a damaged piece!"

Rukmini Chitti, too, was a fundamental consumer and what she did with most of
the swank MNC products is what most others would do too. The question is how
closely has the manufacturer watched the consumer to know what all she does
with his product, wondered Ramesh. From applying Vicks Vaporub around the
navel of a colicky infant ('this is the best'- Chittispeak) to dry polishing her silver
with Vim powder to popping 2-3 vitamin capsules everyday in the belief that
more was better for health, the list was endless. Ramesh's colleagues sat late
hours staring at consumer behaviour researches, and concluded, 'the consumer
values our product'. He wondered, is all this also part of the product's attribute
or simply adding to consumption figures? Like when she has acidity, Chitti drank
a mix of Pepsi in cold milk, swearing it is, after all, soda. "Is that so? I don't
know, she thinks she does, and the manufacturer does not know she does this,
or even if he did, he is delighted that Chitti in faraway Salem stocks three
bottles of Pepsi as ready remedy. And the doctor be damned!"
His boss Sudheer Vatsa argued with Ramesh when he said that apart from the
goodness of your brand, you also need to tell the consumer how it should not be
used. So he said: "What can Pepsi do if your aunt wants to drink it that way !

Ramesh did not have an answer, but he said: "In our own office I noticed today
the cleaning boy clean computer peripherals with dry scouring powder. I don't
know if this is detrimental to the interiors of key boards, even the product
managers I met didn't know. Rather they say, 'what is wrong with that?' as
against, 'that is very good'." Sudheer felt Ramesh was complaining. "I am
saying, speak more to the consumer, watch his usage and, maybe, you will find
more uses for your product, which is very good, but if you find that detergent
powder corrodes silver, maybe you should address that directly," said Ramesh.
Sudheer said: "How does that affect me or my product? If the consumer
discovers that silver is corroding, she will stop doing so, and that won't take
away her faith in my scouring powder for her utensils!" Ramesh was not
appeased. "But as we flood the market with new products daily, shouldn't we
ensure the user gets the most out of it through correct usage?"

"How much can we speak to the consumer?" asked Anuj. "He buys anyway! This
is also true of feature-rich gadgets that we lust after, but seldom push even one-
fourth of those buttons that we pay for. Do consumers need all the features they
are paying for? Or if they even do, do they read how it is to be used?”

"Does this mean, no matter what the fine print, you already have a groove cut in
your mind about what you want to do with the product?" asked Ramesh. "It
means that his involvement is superficial and not deeper," said Anuj. "I guess
when you are more interested, you make it your business to know. Otherwise,
you re either riding a fad, or just pretending and flaunting."
"But we are examining ordinary everyday behaviours with the product usage"
said Ramesh. "Ordinarily, a consumer aspires to buy a DVD because it has a use
for him. So he thinks: 'hum video chalayenge', but he forgets he has paid for
other features too, like recording, which he does not use; or are you saying he
never aspired for those features?"

His aspiration to own a DVD disappears as soon as he has it," said Anuj. "Then
he starts aspiring for something else. And I am not talking of aficionados or
those who are professionals.  An ordinary consumer with average desires in
India has a short attention span and a shorter memory, unless his life depends
on it." Anuj said: "A semi-literate PCO operator can wow you with all the
infrastructure he has and the way he uses it and what he aspires for to upgrade.
Likewise, a semi-trained mechanic quickly masters the most sophisticated of
auto technologies when it comes to repairs because that is how he makes his
living! But an ordinary buyer is keen to have the latest and the best, even if, as
a consumer, only a fraction of it will satisfy him. One example is the way we
drool over every new upgrade to the Intel chip, irrespective of whether we need
that speed or capability to type out a measly Word document! When will one
ever be able to try even a fraction of its capabilities?"

"Anuj, what are we seeing in all this?" asked Ramesh. "No doubt, this is
aspiration at play, but doesn't a manufacturer desire that a consumer use his
brand effectively? What is the learning point here for manufacturers and
marketers?"

Anuj said: "We have already learnt! That some of the irrelevant issues become
decisive in the decision to buy and a lot of the relevant issues that can give
functional advantage while using the product either bore the consumer or simply
escape attention. Colour and size may be important, but not as much as
performance that he misses out on when he does not know."

"Does this mean that consumer-desire-versus-need has not been adequately

examined by manufacturers/marketers?" asked Ramesh. "Are they simply
wishing to mistake desire for need and sell whatever they can as long as they
can?”

"Yes sell is it," said Anuj, "whatever it takes. 'The consumer is 'smart' and he
will figure it out himself' is often the refrain."
Ramesh pondered, then said: "This is what I think. The consumer has needs.
Some products meet them. Others address more needs which the consumer has
not yet felt. Then come brand wars, where, by sheer imagery, some position
themselves as the brands to aspire for. The consumer now wants the brand with
image because through that he attains some level of self-esteem. So he buys
brands which add to his self worth, even if it has features he does not want.
Marketers see this as demand. But this is not demand for a product as much as
it is for its image! So marketers, too, start selling image unwittingly and when
the consumer buys image, they think he is buying their product for its features.
So they think these features have a demand. This leads them to think
consumers know what these features are all about, or assume that they don't
need to sell features to all consumers.

"So the consumer buys what he also does not need. But nevertheless pays a
premium for image and thinks he has bought what he needs. But he has also
bought what he does not need. Result: he is not fully aware of what the product
can do for him, but specifically, he is not aware of what he should not do with
the product, and might end up harming other features. For example, the
consumer wants a phone that he can walk with. So he buys a cordless phone. He
sees only this feature, but fails to know that he has to care for its battery. The
manual says: 'put phone back on charge when this light flashes'. It does not say,
'don't put phone back on charge if this light does not flash as this will harm your
internal battery.' The consumer thinks of a battery as something that makes
things work. So he thinks I used the phone for five minutes, so the battery is
'five minutes less' now, so let me put it back. So his instrument gets harmed and
it is this fact he has not been told.

WHY do manufacturers not say 'what you should not do with this product'
upfront? It could be because they think if the consumer is buying this
technology, it means he knows how to work with it. So I need not spell
everything out. But the consumer is delighted he can walk and talk. That was his
initial need anyway. He plugs it in and he can walk and talk. So he thinks I have
figured it out. So I do not need to read the manual. And what is he going to say
which I do not know already? Here I am, walking and talking, so the product
works for me. But he does not realise that it is not going to work its full potential
life because he is just about to damage the battery!

"Are manufacturers and marketers watching a consumer in his usage situation

closely enough to see what he does that he should not do? Are marketers
interested in protecting their product for the consumer? But if you look at things
like scourers and detergents, the harm that may befall a consumer due to faulty
use affects not the product, not the manufacturer, not even the user directly,
but the clothes or the silver or the teeth. Of course, an overused scourer can
lead to health problems in the long term. But then, there is no way of saying this
happened because your scourer was bad, or your detergent was bad or you used
it all wrong. The blame could be placed anywhere. Rukmini Chitti, too, will not
blame the manufacturer of the scourer when her silver wears off because she
does not realise this was caused by product misuse. She may blame the silver
shop for selling her substandard silver!”

Anuj agreed, but said: "Where is the time to keep talking about one feature
when the very next day there is a new one? Today there is little room for a
sustainable tech-edge. You invent a feature, rest assured it will be replicated
before the consumer understands and responds to your overtures. Features and
technology are not differentiators anymore. They are a big leveller. So there is a
mad rush to add something more. Be it a new feature or button or a new dirt-
removing dandy atomiser to your detergent. The speed of renewals, upgrades,
obsolescence is breathtaking. The consumer can barely keep pace!"

Ramesh said: "But is the marketer worried about whether the consumer is using
the product the way it was intended?"

"Manufacturers are not concerned about how it will be used," said Anuj. "And the
consumer does not bother about what he will do with the new, improved version
so long as it sounds good. Pepsodent has announced a dental insurance policy;
an application form in each pack. Perhaps, they do not expect people to take the
policy, but only want to validate how sure the brand is about itself so that the
consumer buys it."

Just then the phone rang and the caller asked for a Mr Vaidya. "I will transfer
you," said Anuj, then asked Ramesh, "How is that done?" Together they fumbled
with the buttons, then Anuj told the caller: "Can you call back and ask for
extension 3535? There is something wrong with my telephone, it won't transfer
your call!"