Laddering: Unlocking the Potential of Consumer Behavior

Chapter 9

The Way Forward

You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be.

—Marianne Williamson

AS I SAID at the beginning of this book, I love change. And that’s good news for me and people like me because the changes in the landscape for marketing and product development are definitely not over. We are just at the beginning of a new awakening about how to successfully develop new products and flourish during the rise of relationship marketing. Using the same old approaches to consumer engagement and acquisition with ever-diminishing results won’t be acceptable much longer.

One of this book’s primary purposes is to alter marketing departments and product/brand managers’ perspectives—to shift their focus from what has happened to what will happen with their consumers. Therefore, I want to use this chapter to cover some trends in the consumer space, all of which support the notion that we must continue to strive to understand, support, and speak to consumers at their core.

The Control of Consumer Preference

The National Do Not Call Registry was established in 2004 to prevent telemarketers from interrupting our peace and quiet while we were at home trying to have a meal with our families or simply relaxing. Although many people aren’t aware, there are Internet and wireless device versions of the do not call list that strive to prevent marketers from the same annoying tactics and breaches to personal privacy that can occur within other technology-based media. ...