All-seeing, all-knowing

(3) This new consumer power is changing the way the world shops. The ability to get information about whatever you want, whenever you want, has given shoppers unprecedented strength. In markets with highly transparent prices, they are kings. The implications for business are enormous: threatening for some, welcome for others. For instance, the huge increase in choice makes certain brands more valuable, not less. And as old business divisions crumble, a strong brand in one sector can provide the credibility to enter another. Hence Apple has used its iPod to take away business for portable music players from Sony; Starbucks is aiming to become a big noise in the music business by installing CD-burners in its cafés; and Dell is moving from computers into consumer electronics.

(4) “I am constantly amazed at the confidence level and sophistication of the average consumer,” says Mike George, Dell's chief marketing officer and general manager of its consumer business in the United States. Dell soared to the top of the personal-computer business by cutting out retailers and selling directly to consumers. If Dell changes prices on its website, its customers’ buying patterns change literally within a minute. “That tells you people are well-researched and knowledgeable,” adds Mr. George.

(5) Even buying a car, long considered to be one of the worst retail experiences anyone can have, is being transformed. Over 80% of Ford’s customers in America have already researched their prospective purchase on the internet before they arrive at a showroom, and most of them come with a specification sheet showing the precise car they want from the dealer’s stock, together with the price they are prepared to pay. Similarly, more than three-quarters of mobile-phone buyers in America do their research on the web, even though only 5% buy online, says John Frelinghuysen of Booz Allen Hamilton, a firm of business consultants. They still want to go to a shop to hand over their money and get their phone, but first they want to see exactly what the service package covers, and to read what other users say about their proposed purchase.

(6) With consumers becoming increasingly empowered, how can the marketing, advertising and communications firms that companies use to promote their products hope to get their messages across? And what does it mean for media businesses relying on advertising revenue, the traditional channels for reaching this increasingly elusive audience? Disintermediation—the process of middlemen being cut out - seems to be in the air. The three big TV networks in America have all hedged their bets by acquiring cable channels. The advertising business is reorganizing itself, seeking safety in size. Many agencies are now clustered into four big global groups: America’s Omnicom and Interpublic, France’s Publicis and Britain’s WPP. In some ways they are recreating the big, vertically integrated advertising giants of the past, but with separately run companies to deliver the range of specialist marketing services they think their clients will need in the future.

(7) So what will that future hold? “For the first time the consumer is boss, which is fascinatingly frightening, scary and terrifying, because everything we used to do, everything we used to know, will no longer work,” says Kevin Roberts, chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi, part of Publicis. Shelly Lazarus, head of Ogilvy & Mather, part of WPP, is more sanguine. “Advertising is as vibrant as it has ever been. It’s just that the way you define it is so much broader now, with new ways to reach people,” she explains. “In the past you would keep pounding the creative message out into the market place and look at reach frequency,” says Howard Draft, a veteran direct-marketing expert and chief executive of his eponymous New York agency, part of Interpublic. “Well, basically that is dead. What you have today is an informed consumer who is taking control of the way he learns and hears about products.”

(8) Companies with some of the world’s biggest advertising budgets are beginning to look for new ways of attracting consumers’ attention. Jim Stengel, global marketing officer for Procter & Gamble (P&G), is one of the advertising industry’s harshest critics, awarding it a “C minus” for its ability to embrace new media. And Larry Light, who has been giving McDonald’s a makeover as its chief marketing officer, says bluntly: “The days of mass marketing are over.”

(9) Mass retailing, however, looks as healthy as ever. The supermarkets are taking an increasing proportion of consumer spending - and on a lot of things beside groceries. A growing part of Wal-Mart’s business comes from people searching online for information on products such as consumer electronics, and then visiting a store to make a purchase. “I think it works to our advantage, because we are the price leader,” says Lee Scott, chief executive of the world’s biggest retailer. “There’s power for them and us.”

(10) Consumers, of course, care not a jot about marketing machinations. They are delighted to have more choice, which makes it easier for them to turn their back on a company they do not like and buy elsewhere. For some this is sweet revenge. “Consumers have become jaded and cynical,” says Rob Markey, a partner at Bain & Company, a consultancy. “There is a pile of broken promises heaped on the floor.”

►Find words or phrases in the article that have the same or similar meaning as the following and translate them into Russian:

1. unusual/unheard of

2. become an owner of sth/to get sth by buying it

3. be hard or difficult to find or see

4. be fed up with/tired of/sick of

5. reduce your chances of failure or loss by having several choices available to you

6. reprisal/vengeance

►Find words/phrases having the same or similar contextual meaning with those boldfaced. Insert them into sentences in the appropriate form. Now translate the sentences into Russian.

►Summarize the content of the first ten paragraphs keeping to the following guidelines:

1. Benefiting from the biggest advertising event of the year.

2. The ability to get info about whatever you want, whenever you want, has given shoppers unprecedented strength.

3. The transformation of car retail experiences.

4. With consumers becoming increasingly empowered, that’s how the marketing, advertising and communications firms can hope to get their messages across.

5. Looking for new ways of attracting consumers’ attention.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 840