00:00:00
So, it's interesting because influencers
00:00:02
are can be a leader segment or not. So,
00:00:05
if someone is clearly paid to endorse or
00:00:07
use a product or they're really
00:00:09
representing just themselves, they
00:00:11
usually don't represent a full leader
00:00:13
segment, but when it feels like a
00:00:16
segment of celebrities or athletes or
00:00:18
wealthy people use a a brand. So, Beats
00:00:21
headphones is a good example. Yes, some
00:00:23
of the athletes are paid to use Beats,
00:00:25
but it also is a whole segment of
00:00:26
professional athletes that love Beats,
00:00:28
which makes people like me who want to
00:00:30
feel like Tom Brady before I go into
00:00:32
teach want to use Beats headphones. Um,
00:00:35
and so it does have to feel like a true
00:00:37
segment. It can't just be, oh, Tom Brady
00:00:39
was paid to tell me he likes these.
00:00:41
How does a company then deal with the
00:00:44
scenario you also lay out where you have
00:00:46
incompatible segments? That I would
00:00:49
think that would be the that would be
00:00:50
the largest challenge for them.
00:00:52
Yes, always better, you know, an ounce
00:00:55
of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
00:00:57
Um, that's true in marketing, too. I
00:00:59
think, yeah, in that case, you have to
00:01:01
find ways to separate them, create that
00:01:03
hierarchy, or potentially fire a
00:01:05
customer segment, which can feel scary,
00:01:07
but sometimes the best thing to do is
00:01:09
say, "We have to choose the segment
00:01:12
we're for and the segment we're not
00:01:13
for." A big mistake I see brands make
00:01:16
over and over again is they find
00:01:17
themselves in conflict, and so they try
00:01:20
to just serve both. You saw this with
00:01:21
Bud Light a couple years ago. You see
00:01:23
this with Target right now where they uh
00:01:26
got themselves in a political conflict
00:01:29
between segments and they responded with
00:01:31
a court sort of we don't know which side
00:01:33
we're going to pick. So then both
00:01:35
segments said okay well you're not for
00:01:36
us and then they're they're leaving in
00:01:38
droves. Usually you have to pick one.
00:01:41
Seemingly this is a new norm than larger
00:01:44
scale for a lot of companies as we move
00:01:46
forward. This is not something that is
00:01:48
kind of in this moment in time. this is
00:01:51
kind of here. Companies are going to
00:01:52
have to continue to work with it in
00:01:54
order to find that growth. We're not
00:01:56
going to go back uh you know maybe
00:01:58
several decades to before we saw a lot
00:02:00
of these uh segments coming uh coming to
00:02:03
the forefront.
00:02:04
Absolutely. And that's driven by a few
00:02:06
things. I mean first is um the
00:02:09
information channels we use are more
00:02:11
porous than ever. So you can't put
00:02:13
something in a special interest magazine
00:02:15
and assume no other segment will see it.
00:02:17
If you put it on social media, it could
00:02:18
surface in anyone's algorithm and then
00:02:20
it can be reposted and shared um and you
00:02:23
know made into a bigger deal much more
00:02:25
easily. We use brands and products more
00:02:28
as identity signals than ever before
00:02:30
whether it's to reflect my skater
00:02:32
identity or my you know cool athlete
00:02:34
identity or my political affiliation. So
00:02:37
that's going to increase the risk of
00:02:39
incompatibilities.
00:02:40
Um, and as I said, the barriers to entry
00:02:43
are pretty low across a lot of
00:02:44
industries now, which means one brand's
00:02:46
conflict could be another brand's
00:02:48
opportunity. I see you're ignoring a
00:02:50
segment or you've done something that's
00:02:52
bothering one. Well, I'm going to then
00:02:53
pick them off because I can actually
00:02:55
serve them better and more clearly.
00:02:58
Thank you for listening to the Ripple
00:02:59
Effect. We hope you found this episode
00:03:01
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00:03:03
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00:03:06
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00:03:07
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