Friday, February 16, 2007
Thot bubbled #38
The cover of this week's issue of the Economist says we're seeing the beginning of the end of the cash era. What does this mean to marketing and marketing planning? The way I see it, off the top of my head, I think this means people will consume more. It means it's going to become easier for people to buy things. It means there's going to be more brands launched. It means more competition. It means it's going to become more difficult to make people buy into advertising. It means it's going to become harder to sell because it's going to become easier to buy. Oh no! The more things change, the more they remain the same. Jokes apart, what will the exponential growth is consumer credit mean in the short and the long run? I know, i know, in the long run we're all dead. Still, for arguments sake.
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4 comments:
I think that being cash free will enable ppl will buy more add on products and complimentary brands
my logic - when I pay by debit card (and I hardly carry cash, it's so annoying) - it's very easy to pick up lots of things, I'm signing a slip of paper.. so hey, gimme those groceries n chocolates and magazine and flowers. easier to be impulsive. when i'm paying cash.. right, i have 400 bucks and I want a book. I'll spend longer figuring out which ONE book I want. Or in the grocery store, I'd buy my essentials and then be too bored to queue again. So perhaps marketers will have to work harder at getting attention + making things work together. see, this wine goes great with this new cheese. these headfones are puuurfect for noisy ad agencies.... (simplistic examples but thr you go!)
I have just got my copy of The Economist - I am sure I'll have more things to add when I am done reading the article in question but these are my first thoughts off the head.
Digital cash in effect means an abundance of information about where, how and on what money was spent. Physical money has its conveniences but the ability to store information about how it was spent is not one of them (for eg., how much you spent on autos in the last week or the last few years.)
Digital cash will provide us with a more fine-tuned understanding of our own spending, apart from allowing micro-spending on more things - like buying many more singles from different albums rather than simply picking up a few albums.
The fortunate/unfortunate thing will be that the same information will be available to us marketers/ producers and this information should make it possible for us to find more cunning ways to sell stuff.
Excellent observation, IQ. Yes it'll make us more accountable with our own money.
Spending will increase. Like fink says swiping a card is so easy compared to handing over cash. If I had actually spent the amount of money I spend on books in cash, I would have sworn off buying books 5 years ago. I am so scared I don't even want to count it in my head right now.
On the other hand, this will result in a lot of debt for people who don't really understand how credit card companies work - by charging exorbitant interest. This could end up in half the country as slaves for credit card companies just like in the US of A. I am not sure what repercussions that would have on advertising.
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