Don’t Call Them “Consumers”

What you call people matters.  It tells them what you really think about them.

Here’s an example: years ago my friend Jules shared how her Mom would call for her Dad in a never-changing escalation of urgency and decline of affection: “Sweetheart!” she’d trill, followed by, “Honey?” and then ending with “Bill!!” 

The equation worked this way:

“Sweetheart!” = “Hello, loving husband, it is I, your loving wife, checking in this happy morning.”

“Honey?” = “Where has that man taken himself off to, and is he perhaps forgetting that I’ve asked him to accomplish something this morning?”

“Bill!” = “Move it old man— I’ve got shit to do!!”

In three words Jules’ Mom went from an affectionate to a functional relationship with her husband.  Fortunately, relationships are dynamic and tend to move in both directions.

This matters for marketers and their attendants (agencies, media) because when you talk about those folks who either already buy your stuff or may one day buy your stuff as “consumers” then you have reduced your relationship with these people to a functional one in which their only job is to consume your stuff so that you can make money, then make new stuff, and then sell that stuff to the consumers also.

If you are an old-style marketer who is using one-way pipes like TV and print to firehose impressions at a somewhat resigned population, then you’re probably OK doing this because you’re just talking and not pretending to listen… sort of like Jules’ Dad.  (This may sound like I disapprove of such messaging, but I don’t: it’s honest and practical and sometimes the ads are entertaining.)

However, if you’re a marketer using social media to create so-called “friends” or if you’re content-curious and trying your hand as a publisher, then the moment you use the word “consumer” then you’ve proven that you are a liar.

They aren’t your friends.  You don’t care what the people on the other end of the communication think or how they feel.  They are just consumers, and you’re saying, “shut up and eat.”

Now, for the most part people don’t want to have relationships with brands.  They don’t want to be friends with brands.  They don’t care about the brand behind the products they buy and use except insofar as those brands save them valuable cognitive effort when shopping (so they can go back to playing with their phones) or save them money at checkout.

But that still doesn’t make them consumers.  At zero moments do people welcome marketers efforts to paint them into a corner where they are consumers.

So, if you’re a marketer reading this, then join me in vowing not to call the people who pay your bills “consumers.”  It’s just rude.

BUT WHAT DO I CALL THEM? I hear your plaintive cry.  Much ink has been spilled on this question. 

Marketers don’t want to call people “customers” because they reserve that label for the folks who have already bought something (not that they treat customers any better than consumers.)  This is bullshit but at least it’s logically consistent.

My friend Joe Jaffe and I got into a spat many years ago when we disagreed about whether to call the online version of these folks “users” or not (I thought yes; Joe thought it made them sound like addicts… and this was before Facebook made us all into genuine addicts).  Another friend, Grant McCracken, once suggested calling these people “amplifiers,” but I think this is too hopeful a term as most folks decline to amplify.

When you’re talking about folks who do or might buy your product in a social media or content marketing context, then I suggest using “audience,” since even though they don’t have much of a voice at least we credit audiences with having brains, opinions and feet with which they can vote.

If a marketer is talking about people who are actively doing something, then I suggest “participants,” because that label recognizes their efforts— whether positive or negative.

And if you’re fire hosing messages, then I suggest you talk about the collection of drenched bodies as people— since that’s what we all are.

Just don’t call them consumers.

[Cross-posted with iMedia Connection.]