MARKETING EVOLUTION
A Case of two customers
By Marion Wakahe
Cis gender describes someone whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex. Some people would not define themselves as cis gender. Their demeanour and behaviour are normally associated with the opposite gender. Someone close to me complained recently of a woman dressed and head shaven that made her look very masculine.“ It’ s just silly to me,” she said.“ Welcome to the world you are living in,” was my response.
Demographic segmentation of markets is a common practice. Criteria such as age, gender, income level, family size, marital status, profession, education, etc. are used. This helps in targeting; making sure that the product is sold to the group of people most likely to buy.
Gender is an interesting criterion to use and as a marketing professional it is important to understand that there is a difference between gender and sex. Gender identity refers to a person’ s deeply felt, inherent sense of being male or female which may or may not correspond to a person’ s sex assigned at birth or to a person’ s sex characteristics.
But there is another consideration. Some people fully identify with their sex at birth and would therefore wholly consider themselves as male or female but simultaneously, fully, or in part embrace characteristics associated with the opposite gender.
Keeping in mind the above, we’ ll consider the story of BP- not his real initials. BP is a man in touch with his femininity and not ashamed to show. He loves his bags. One time he decided to go shopping for a new bag whilst still holding on to his older bag. He got into the store and met with a store assistant( SA).
SA:“ Hi, how can I be of assistance? BP:“ I’ m here to buy a bag.”
SA:“ I’ m sorry sir but this is a ladies store, we don’ t sell men’ s bags.”
BP: Looks down at the bag he was holding and asks,“ Does it look like I am here to buy a man’ s bag?”
He stepped away from her and browsed the shop. It was not long though before he left the shop.
“ Gender is an interesting criterion to use and as a marketing professional it is important to understand that there is a difference between gender and sex. Gender identity refers to a person’ s deeply felt, inherent sense of being male or female which may or may not correspond to a person’ s sex assigned at birth or to a person’ s sex characteristics.”
Upset does not fully capture how he felt. He went on Instagram, started a live video, and talked about how denigrated he felt, that money has no gender, how they made him feel horrible, that the store assistant gave off such nasty vibes, and so on. BP is a well-to-do businessman with an Instagram following of over 650,000 so it was not long before the video did the rounds and got attention from people higher up in the company.
The company’ s head of marketing got in touch with him and apologised for what he had gone through at the store.“ Please understand that the behaviour of the staff member you met does not reflect our values. We believe that anyone who feels that our products suit them should be able to purchase and use them freely. We will undertake refresher training for all staff to have a more inclusive mindset.” In addition, he asked BP to visit the store again and pick any bag of his liking at their cost. BP did so and uploaded a second video describing his experience. He was happy with their response,“ they did right by me,” he said.
This is a story that can be used as a case study. I asked myself a few questions: What if he was buying the bag for his mother, aunty, sister, girlfriend, etc.? Maybe the other bag he was carrying was a reference point for the bag he should buy? Does it matter that he was buying the bag for himself? How good and how frequent is the training that is given to staff in the store? Is it made clear that a customer, is a customer, is a customer?
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MAL 45 / 21 ISSUE