Oh, Lazy Gardens... where to start?
First of all, her definition of market saturation is correct. Her evaluation that the cosmetics market in the US is saturated makes sense. However, her "statistic" that it is 99.999% saturated is questionable, dubious and she does not cite a source for that fact.
She then explains market share - also correct. However, in referring to Mary Kay's market share, she dismisses their claimed 10% market share as "way too high", but goes on to say that this means 90% are available. If their current market share is less than 10% then the % of the market available to reach is even higher than 90%.
But that's all to-may-toe/to-mah-toe stuff, because her real point is that Mary Kay consultants can't succeed in capturing more market share because of the "cost of switching" and because Mary Kay doesn't invest money in advertising.
This point of view absolutely drives me crazy. The whole point of this style of marketing is to avoid spending money on advertising. The idea is that you pay real people to talk about and demonstrate your product and gain "mindshare" that way. I always hear (and think it myself) people saying how much they hate misleading TV ads, radio ads, billboards, etc. And we all know how ineffective these mediums can be. When was the last time you saw a commercial and said, "I'm going to buy that brand instead of my brand because of that commercial. It takes a lot of views to change a mindset and there is never a guarantee.
But let's take a look at what that advertising costs. L'Oreal (who Lazy Gardens mentioned) spent $1.1 Billion (with a B) in 2010 and Ford (who owned Volvo - also mentioned by Lazy Gardens - from 1999 until 2010) also spent $1.1 Billion in 2010 to pick up that elusive mindshare. Some other numbers - just for fun - Verizon: $1.8 B, AT&T: $2 B, GM: $2.1 B, and Procter & Gamble: $3.1 B. These numbers all come from Kantar Media and can be found here.
Lazy Gardens makes it sound like not dropping a billion dollars on advertising is Mary Kay "damaging" consultants ability to sell. This is simply not true. It is what makes Mary Kay able to pay the consultant in the first place.
Her ridiculous line about Mary Kay not caring as long as consultants keep ordering wholesale is just more of Pink Truth's insane brainwashing mantra. Should Mary Kay really be expected to monitor adults to 'make sure they are selling what they order'? Can you imagine? Hi, just calling to make sure that you actually sold all that stuff you ordered last time. I can't ship you any more until you clear your shelves. I know you really want to get this award, but I can't give it to you until you show me pictures of you handing the product to customers and getting money in return. Oh, and I need to talk to all of them to make sure that you didn't just stage those sales pictures. It just gets ridiculous. The alternative is to leave that up to the consultant. (Novel, I know...) which Mary Kay does.
This article concludes with a special "note from Pink Truth" about the added negative of being constantly hounded if you are a Mary Kay customer. If you feel that you are being constantly hounded, find a different consultant. Or let your consultant know that it is becoming a barrier to you buying your product from her. I didn't leave Verizon because they kept playing the same commercials over and over again. Most people will put up with and even appreciate a certain level of 'brand awareness' updates. Everyone's threshold is different and you can't really know it unless they tell you. They certainly aren't going to call you and say, "you aren't calling me often enough, please call more." They will (sometimes) let you know that you are calling too much. This is why it is generally agreed that it is better to do too much and let someone tell you to back off a little than do to little and never know that you were not giving them enough. I can hear an ad on the radio sitting in my driveway, and think, "I should look up that website" and forget by the time I get in the house. Just because Pink Truth says that everyone hates you because you sell Mary Kay does not mean it is true. Time and again, we see that Pink Truth's "Truths" are not really so true. |
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