COMPLACENT MARKETING
Brands Should
Reciprocate The Intimacy
By Diana Obath
Consumer behavior has changed fast
since the arrival of the coronavirus
outbreak. With most businesses
remaining shut, social media has become
a full-blown marketplace. All dormant
business accounts seem to have been
activated and new sponsored pages are
being served to the timeline five at a time.
Non-essential trips to the supermarket
have ceased leading to a boom in
e-commerce and delivery services.
Safaricom in July 2020 reported total
B2B mobile money transactions worth
Ksh.878.1 billion between January to
March 2020, figures higher than C2B
transactions standing at Sh. 301.1 billion
for the same period. That should be no
surprise as mobile money is easy, fast,
flexible and convenient. However, now
that e-commerce is the new trend and
social media is the marketplace, customers
are beginning to get fatigued and
marketing is getting more complex.
With the basics covered, customer
expectations are growing as they expect
more and more innovative stunts on
social media and are attracted to unique
marketing ideas given that they are now
spending much more time online. Their
expectations of brands are also much
higher, and they tend to be drawn to
brands that show a sense of responsibility
towards supporting the current crisis.
Recently I had to purchase a dress and
walked into a store in one of the malls.
As I was still looking around trying
to select an outfit, one customer asked
the store attendant where she could fit
the dress she wanted to buy. The store
attendant politely reminded her that
fitting of dresses was not allowed at the
store to reduce the spread of Covid-19.
Shocked, the customer asked her how she
was expected to buy a dress she wasn’t
sure would fit. “Company policy’’, the
attendant responded. What followed
was a sea of words from the customer to
the attendant and a number of messages
that attendant was required to pass on to
management.
The customer expressed that the store had
an obligation to let customers know that
fitting was not allowed and that the store
now had a no return-no exchange policy on
the items to allow customers make better
decisions on which stores to visit. She
complained about the process of getting
into the malls which is hectic, tedious and
The fact is that since the arrival of the pandemic
and the requirement to wear masks
at all times, marketing no longer appeals to
the senses. The signs around the shops point
to directions that can be summarized as look
but don’t touch, obviously don’t smell and
once you taste it consider it sold.
comes with a list of requirements. The fact
that the store didn’t have an interactive 3D
website also upset her. She said the dresses
looked good on the photos shared on the
shop’s Facebook page but there was no
way she could tell if the dresses suited her
body type unless she tried them on. She
also reminded the attendant that she was
only shopping there because the store is
a local store and she preferred to support
local business especially during this time
of financial hardship instead of buying
imported dresses.
In closing, she asked the attendant to tell
management to stop taking advantage of
customers in communicating about their
contribution to pandemic in a bid to sell
more products noting that if she was to
buy more than one item from the shop she
would redeem her loyalty points to cover
some of the costs. By this time, all two of
the other shoppers including myself, had
stopped looking around the store and had
our eyes fixated on the counter where this
conversation was taking place. The lady
who had just upset the sales for the day,
and maybe the attendant’s mood walked
out of the store, all three of us in tow.
However, on my way to the next store, I
pulled out my phone and took down my
marketing lessons of the day.
First things first, shoppers are finding
the in-store experience less enjoyable.
The customer complained tirelessly about
failure of the store to notify customers that
fitting of dresses was not allowed and that
online shopping was encouraged. The fact
is that since the arrival of the pandemic
and the requirement to wear masks at all
times, marketing no longer appeals to the
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MAL37/20 ISSUE