O Marketing!

The other day, while driving, I was trying to change the channels on my car stereo to listen to some good songs but all that I got was the standard FM channels that mostly played the latest sponsored songs and tunes. Not to take away anything from the new tracks and their composers but listening to the same tunes the entire day, across different channels, was too overwhelming. I longed for the old Vivid Bharati kind of broadcast that played popular songs on listeners’ requests. Unfortunately, the Vivid Bharati channel was playing a talk show then. 

Branding and Advertising always existed in my childhood but Marketing as a skill and a critical function emerged more prominently in the post-Manmohan era. Over the years, corporate marketing has moved from a tentative experiment to assuming a CXO-level function across organizations. Be it an everyday selling of consumer goods or a niche software product, the marketing function plays an important strategic role. 

In the current digital era, however, the lines between marketing, influencing, and lobbying have kind of blurred. The marketeers today seem to be taking an easier path by relying heavily on influencers and lobbyists – who seem to be playing a larger role than the pure marketeers. Do a Google search on any product or service, you invariably find a few sponsored offerings matching your search. The social media influencers have created such an aura around them that the otherwise well-educated and skilled youth also consider switching their careers to this new-found profession that gets them a much higher and seemingly easy buck. 

The lobbyists have existed for long – to influence the policymakers at corporate levels. It is legal in some countries, while in others it is a covert operation. But social media influencers are all in open. Be it page-3 of a local daily, a book review, a health column, a new launch brand, a new-found super food, a new restaurant in your neighborhood, a new fashion trend or a new weekend tourist destination – all of these are pushed by a bunch of social media influencers. The new term for them is ‘content creator’ and I read somewhere that we have 2.5 to 3.5 million of these content creators in the country now.  And you don't even take it with a ‘pinch of salt’ as another influencer told you that it was not good for your BP.  While genuine marketing is like going to a well-stocked and attractively colourful fresh vegetable market in the morning, the influencer-led business is like going to a dimly lit vegetable vendor at night and getting a few rotten pieces passed on with your buy.  There is no accountability whatsoever. The influencers don’t overtly represent their recommendations but they do have a vested interest most of the time. 

As late as this morning, a cousin of mine shared in the family whatsapp group, the details about a temple in Bithoor – an obscure little town near my birthplace Kanpur – and asked me if I knew about it. Frankly, in my 20 years of childhood and schooling days, I had heard of Bithoor only in the context of Nana Sahib and Rani Laxmi Bai. But surely, it is the social media influencers who had pulled out ostensibly an architectural and religious gem from the hinterland up north and presented that to my cousin down south in Chennai. So, it is not all bad with the social content creators, perhaps. Building a base of followers is the stepping stone of an influencer – and that’s where, possibly, some genuine knowledge sharing or marketing happens. 

Like the might of a crowd-pulling politician or a movement, the power of an influencer with millions of followership cannot be undermined. And, like the dread of a hafta-seeking local goon, the million-followed influencer shouldn’t become an all-powerful hafta-seeking digital goon. The authorities need to streamline this new skillset of influencers before it becomes a menace, and the genuine marketeers should draw their territory to stay clear of the thin bordering line.