The C-word
I have a confession to make.
I can’t stop using the C word. Only at work though. I wouldn’t dream of it at home or even in the pub (when the pub was somewhere you might have found me, that is.)
I’ve tried, I really have and I know it’s so wrong but I just can’t help it. It’s become automatic. I realised it was a problem some time ago and assumed it was just another bad habit that needed breaking (there have been so many I’m an expert), but I fear it has festered too long, so deeply embedded into my neuro-linguistic being that I need a C3PO-style complete hard drive wipe rather than just a minor programme update. It’s shameful.
I don’t remember the first time, somewhere back in the less enlightened naughties (ooh look, Freudian typo right there), when I first uttered the word but I’m sure I thought it sounded impressive and grown up. It wasn’t just me either. My friends all used the C word too. We bandied it around like nobody’s business, at the coffee machine, in meetings, even in the boardroom. We were modern marketeers and we just didn’t care.
It’s hard to believe that no one ever called us out. I guess times were different then. People smoked everywhere, music only came in physical formats, Rolf Harris was the Queen’s official portrait artist. Well, it stops here. Enough is enough. I’m self-correcting. It’s day 1 of my new life.
Hello, my name is Tash and I need to stop using the word ‘consumer’.
CONSUMER: person who buys a product or service for personal use
CONSUME: eat or drink, use up, destroy, absorb
Synonyms: devour, digest, deplete, exhaust, expend
What is so offensive, so utterly abhorrent about the word? (you might possibly be asking). Well I’m so glad you (possibly) asked. It’s not just a word, it is the concept that it reflects and what that says about how I perceive and interact with the world that I just can’t square with my reality anymore. It has become incongruous and anachronistic. The word feels completely wrong in my mouth these days like, I imagine, eating testicles might do. Here is why I think that is.
- It fails to accurately describe human beings in all their brilliant complexity — it is a dehumanising term that reduces people to Pac-Men, capable only of mindlessly munching what is put in front of them. It fails to consider their individuality, their free will and determinism and the many exciting ways in which they use, share, transform and change the products and services that they choose to have in their lives.
- It works counter to all the aspects of marketing that excite me and make me love what I do — namely, building brands that people choose to have in their lives for positive reasons. If we choose to see people as Pac Men, defined singularly by their ability to consume goods, then we see them only as serving our ends and we don’t seek to serve them. We don’t even acknowledge as important, let alone put at the centre of our strategy, what really matters to people and consequently we never strive to innovate or improve their lives in any meaningful way. If we fail to create meaning or value in their lives they will, sooner or later, leave us behind. Game over.
- It is so totally out of step with today’s culture. We are waking up to the potentially terrifying consequences facing humankind if we fail to decelerate decades of unbridled consumption and fundamentally reassess the meaning of ‘economic success’. The idea of people as automaton stuff-gobblers denies the need to help people to make informed purchase decisions and the importance of the role that brands owners can play in that.
Whether the words that we use merely reflect the way that we think or whether they actually have the power to shape future beliefs and behaviours is a fascinating subject to ponder but matters little in this case because, either way, how on this beautiful Earth can I believe all this stuff in my head and my heart and still use that word?
I am determined to eradicate it from my lexicon forever and so, I am going to put my money where my mouth is. Should you catch me ever using the C word I will make a donation to an environmental charity or fund of your choice, on the spot. No ifs or buts. That’s a promise.
P.S. I am still working out what term to use instead. ‘People’ seems to work best for me (sometimes adding “who use X” if I need more focus). Humans, individuals?
Disney use the word ‘guests’ and it totally changes the way they value and treat them.
What do you think?
Author: Tash Laming, Strategist.
Over 15 years’ experience designing, conducting and commissioning consumer & shopper research projects large and small, local and global, tactical and strategic for a variety of household brands. I have worked both agency and client-side but always in Research & Insight. The beauty of this is that I can ensure that you get a smooth-running, insight-rich research project as cost-effectively as possible.
If you’re interested in how Team Eleven can fuel your business growth, please contact phil.overton@teameleven.co.uk
Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash
