January 24, 2005, Market Smart—Appleton Post Crescent
By Kathy Fredrickson
iMark Consulting - President
Anchoring Can Help Marketers Connect With Customers
This is my 72nd column for Market Smart. Whenever I see this number, I make associations to 1972. For boomers and Gen Xers, this year has shaken off its Watergate image and brings a sense of nostalgia and appreciation for a time when family, friends and faith ruled before technology.
Three events have significance for me. Baseball Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk completed his first rookie season with the Red Sox and later joined my favorite team, the White Sox. He wore 72 on his jersey in honor of that year and I have fond memories cheering him on at games with my dad and my sister until his final season in 1993. The movie “The Way We Were,” which my mom says to this day made my dad cry, was filmed that year. Finally, in August ’72 two young parents moved into married housing at Western Michigan University with trepidation and hope for the future with their little girl, Katherine Marie.
It’s an understatement to say our lives have been forever changed since 1972. As we move through the decades at warp speed and feel our lives becoming depersonalized and increasingly complex, we find security in reconnecting with our past. A desire to simplify and get back to our roots lives with us daily.
It’s part of a key lifestyle trend well-known futurist Faith Popcorn calls anchoring. Marketers who understand this trend and find ways to apply it to their strategy will resonate with their target audience better than anyone else.
Anchoring is the desire to reconnect with our cultural, spiritual and ethical roots, and taking “what was secure from the past in order to be ready for the future.” Popcorn and other futurists believe anchoring takes affect when we are concerned that friends, faith and family will be overpowered by science and technology advancing at an ever increasing pace.
A need for spirituality is a cornerstone of anchoring. It can be personal, like developing a plan to focus on living and loving rather than accumulating material possessions. It can also be displayed in public. Some businesses have made spirituality their moniker, proudly displaying their associations with a higher power to connect with others sharing the same affinity. Popcorn predicts spirituality will become much more integral to daily life and predicts companies will begin scheduling meditation for employees.
For marketers, the process of building anchoring in to their strategy can begin with asking your target to list and describe products or services that are “good for the soul.” This activity may uncover ways you can provide opportunities for your target to associate your product or service with providing a sanctuary from daily stresses and strains.
Secondary research can be culled from authors like Thomas Moore, an ex-priest who has written books on how to look for and find deep spiritual qualities in the consumption of everything from food to automobiles. He draws from psychology, anthropology and life experience to describe how to live a soulful life. According to Moore, current marketing of projecting life and personality onto things brings too much focus “back to the ego.” A modern approach would entail accepting a consumer’s feeling for an item results from their own action and subjectivity. Translated, this means the consumer decides.
It’s 2005 and like many others, I’ll be searching for ways to anchor my past with the future. My material accumulation will be charged by discovering ways to “fuel my soul.” In honor of 1972 and my 72nd column, I think I’ll order a DVD of “They Way We Were” and a Carton Fisk print off e-Bay.
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