This is not an article about making a difference in the world. It’s not about significance. It’s not about leaving your legacy. It’s far more important than that. It’s about winning the attention of today’s young set (15-35) by giving them a compelling reason to take more steps toward your business. It has everything to do with your memory and their unique individuality.
‘remember ME’ describes applications of a shift/trend that we’re all going to be affected by. In fact, that we’re all affected by right now.
remember – In order to do an effective job at remembering you need two things. Firstly you need a large memory and secondly you need the skill to recall the correct information at the appointed time. There’s no point remembering the wrong information at the right time, or the right information at the wrong time. You need to get both right, when it counts.
For the longest time humans have developed their minds in order to do just that. And its been a skill and ability worth acquiring. Going back as far as we can remember, we know that it was those who could remember who were the leaders. If you could remember that the little red berries made you sick and the little yellow berries made you better, you had some serious respect conferred on you that could be transferred into power. It was the rememberers who led the people. The descriptor most often used is wise, but in essence they just had darn good memories and re-call abilities, compared to those around them. And since the early days of human civilization there’s been a race to remember more information and re-call it quicker, with increasing relevance and accuracy. Writing and books took us to a new level, and from there what separated the men from the boys shifted from memory to recall, speed and accuracy.
During the mid-1900s we saw the arrival of computers and by 2005 we now have more memory than we know what to do with, but we also have more and more tools that ensure an increase in speed, recall and accuracy. OK accuracy has some distance to go yet, but speed and recall are probably as good as we need them to be. Let me use Google to make my point (www.google.com). If I ask Google to search for poisonous berries it returns 3640 pages (recall) in 0.24 seconds (serious speed I can’t imagine what difference 0.anything of a second would make?) However amongst the results are: looney statements, smoking, berries (that’s what I’m looking for), birds, food, politics, sex – there’s always sex -, songs, etc) You get the idea? We’re lacking on accuracy. The next holy grail in remembering?
The point is though, that we’re further down the road when it comes to memory than we’ve ever been before. We have no excuse really to not remember. Remembering should be easy. It is easy. It should be a given.
ME – The second part of the equation, and probably the most important part is ME. During the 90s we saw the pinnacle of the dream of mass marketing. Not to say that the ability to market to the masses hadn’t been there before, it was just that the ability to communicate through the internet and mobile phones gave to marketers everything they’d always dreamed of. Speed, efficiency, low cost, directed accurately to the person on the other side, through multiple channels with multiple mediums. However, the internet and mobile phones also brought with it the realization of the dream of the consumer, the ability to be recognized and communicated to as an individual and not part of a mass. This became the bitter sweet pill of the marketer. Finally technologies that gave them everything they’d always needed, but useless because the consumer now demanded an entirely new approach. ME!
Today’s consumers don’t want to be seen as part of one big blob. They want to be recognized as unique, and so they should want that. They are unique. Why should I have the same car as my neighbor, when I can have a car that is ME? Henry Ford said, “They can have any colour car they want as long as its black”. But he missed the point that Alfred Sloan (of General Motors) got. While black may have been the fastest drying colour paint, and therefore important to his production line, his customers wanted something important to them. The freedom to choose ME. Sloan gave that to them, and General Motors grew bigger than Ford, and that as they say, is how the cookie has continued to crumble.
There are hundreds of millions of cell phones covered by just a few models and brands in existence today, but I dare you to find me two that are the same? You can’t. They have unique combinations of ring tones, wall paper, software, profiles, etc, etc. Within a few minutes of getting your new phone, you’re customising.
Today’s motor vehicles have more options and choices than we need. It doesn’t even matter what level in a range you purchase. Cheap and nasty, fancy and expensive, almost every car in every category has a myriad of options for the buyer to choose from. No two cars are identical either. How can they be, when today you have 5 or 6 versions of black to choose from? If Henry Ford was around today one wonders which of the 6 he would have chosen.
ME is important. ME is critical. See ME. ME is unique. ME is different from all the other MEs that are out there. We have moved from individual marketing to the masses (mass marketing), to marketing on mass to the individual (mass individualisation). There’s no turning back.
remember ME Today’s younger set want to be recognised as an individual, and know that the technology to do that is available to you. So why can’t I walk into a store and be told what I purchased yesterday, or last week, or last month? Why should I have to keep an old paint lid somewhere in my garden shed, when you can remember ME and tell me what paint I use? Why do I have to remember the brand of tomato sauce I use, when you can remember ME and tell me which one I prefer? Why must I remember when I opened the bank account (year, month AND day)?
It’s so much more than being personal with me. It’s about being practical and useful in my life. I’m not looking for a friend from my local food store. Sure it’s nice to have people who know my name, but I’d like people who can simplify my very busy life.
Remember my name will leave me feeling good, remember ME will keep me coming back.
