Ice-Cream Solves Everything
From high-pitched conversation to a breakthrough Idea. Here is my experience with a client.
When sitting (at a distance of 6ft ) with a very senior client of mine, the conversation was veering towards how the landscape has changed and what used to work doesn’t anymore.
To give you some perspective, this is someone who has spent 25 years in F & B and amplified his business to 20 restaurants in India and as an agency, we managed their design requirements thus far. For obvious reasons, a debate started.
Here’s how the conversation went.
C: Adnan, We are not getting any interaction on our social media pages.
Me: Your website has information about you, and your product and your social media handles only talk about your new menu items. That isn’t what the customer wants to buy, the customer wants to buy food that appeals to ‘them’.
C: What do you mean?
Me: I mean, You are doing the exact same thing online and offline. You are praying for a customer to visit so that they can buy something at your outlet.
C: (Getting irritable at this point) Should I message people randomly on social media saying,” Hey, how are you?”. We are uploading content regularly and we don’t get interaction.
Me: (Trying to be a bit bold) But that is because you are telling them about yourself, not what they want to hear…
C:(Annoyed and hyper-pitched) They need to know I have been around for 25 years and the credibility we have!. I have built this business doing what I do best! So don’t tell me I am not pleasing my customer. You are really irritating me now.
Me:(Avoiding the look of death) Your food is pleasing the customer…not what you are telling them…
C:(Now visibly irritated) Enough! We will not talk about this anymore. You just do what you have been doing for me, and I will figure it out.
A couple of Cornettos ( 4 Cornettos between both of us) and a little more conversation later.
C: So tell me… What are you thinking? (with a Chuckle)
Me: Content is important, what the content is about, and how it is portrayed is even more important. You need to fit into the idea a customer has about food, not vice versa.
We are now helping him build a content strategy that involves his consumers more than our content team. Our job is to make sure we attract those conversations and because we have successfully managed to do that we have been bold enough to encourage that across the board with all our clients.
Four things I learned from the conversation.
The landscape has changed and conventional ways of doing business now need to get more inclusive. Content marketing and creation are here to stay and brands need to join and influence the conversation, not create it.
In this case, User-Generated Content is a big draw. Customers now like to hear what other customers are saying, not influencers, but other customers.
More often than not, impulse and ego are what make people react, keep scratching at it to prove your point, sooner rather than later, they will see value in what you are saying if you are genuinely trying to help.
DO NOT get worked up when a client or someone senior to you reacts to what you are saying, can be a deal-breaker. If they are smart enough, they’ll see you mean well.
Ice-Cream solves everything. (No Joke)
If you are a D2C brand that is looking to try something different, get in touch. I am an agency guy with 14 years and just might have the answer to what plagues you.
I can be reached at adnan@tingtong.marketing
