Customer-Centric Marketing in a Fragmented World

Michael Solomon, Professor of Marketing, Saint Joseph's University

Dr. Solomon is a professor of marketing at the Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. He researches and teaches consumer behavior. He has also written textbooks, namely, Principles of Marketing Consumer Behavior, Fashion Psychology, social media, and Advertising used globally.

He advises global clients on marketing strategies to make them more consumer-centric. His latest book is The New Chameleons: How to Connect with Consumers Who Defy Categorization. Research.com recently included Dr. Solomon on its list of the most important contributors to Business & Management research globally.

As a marketing professor for almost 50 years, Dr. Solomon received a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has worked with many Fortune 500 companies to help them to become more consumer-centric.

Amused by consumer preferences today, businesses are facing interesting dilemmas to meet their advancing preferences. Dr. Michael Solomon has highlighted the value of concepts and customer relations over materialistic product features in supply and demand. Akin to customer preferences, progress is subjective. Unlocking this mindset, he strives to inspire marketers to embrace true preferences of clients for longstanding progress.

Helping individuals and organizations understand the modern consumer

It’s often the case that organizations only assume that they understand their customers. Frequently, managers project their preferences onto their market even if the actual buyers are quite different people. And too commonly even the best marketers focus only on functional product attributes when they should be emphasizing intangible benefits. My mantra is to buy products not because of what they do, but what they mean. It’s crucial to take a deep dive and question these assumptions by “fishing where the fish are” and conducting research with the people who buy and sell the product or service.

Determining the customer-product relation over competitive price

In today’s inflationary environment, consumers often make short-term purchases on price-based decisions. However, competing solely on price often is a race to the bottom. The multidecadal work of my colleague and I clearly illustrate that consumers bond with some brands that help them achieve important life goals (success, social acceptance, etc.). And they often are willing to pay a premium for these expressive brands. So, if possible, it’s much better to adopt a long- term perspective that focuses less on being the cheapest, and more on understanding the indelible bonds we have with a small number of brands.

Creating real impact

A large-scale chemical firm was quite adept at inventing new “molecules,” but it relied on its’ engineers’ assumptions about the use of these molecules in new product development. In a global, multi-year project, we identified deep-seated needs that could be met by adapting a well-known “molecule” invented by the firm to a completely new vertical. As a result, we were able to significantly expand their product lines.

Nailing customer satisfaction in the digital verse

Of course, artificial intelligence (AI) is the wild card today. The possibilities excite me, but I believe one of the biggest issues in the market will be trust. What are the likable characteristics of product “experts” (salespeople, digital avatars and AI agents) that affect consumers? The proliferation of deepfakes and other distorted information sources is going to poison the well unless we do something quickly.

It is the age of personalization

My book “The New Chameleons: How to Connect with Consumers Who Defy Categorization” illustrates why widely accepted principles of mass-market segmentation, which includes placing large numbers of consumers into homogeneous categories, is no longer an effective strategy in today’s fragmented marketing environment. Consumers today are far too savvy and wired to passively accept directives from companies they no longer trust.