Consumer (dis) orientation: Gouging captive markets

From my perspective consumer orientation is smart business, and it is largely about giving people what they want. Sometimes we hear this definition applied to business generally, or to marketing. But business and marketing are spheres that allow a lot of behaviour that in no way gives people what they want – rather they sometimes involve exploiting peoples’ wants and needs.

Fine examples are found at every airport. Nothing inspires predatory business practices like an isolated, captive audience. The airport authority does a deal with a business wanting to open a café, and the business goes on to viciously gouge the clients at the airport. Where would people pay $8 for a tiny, bad croissant or muffin, or $10 for a stale little sandwich, but at the airport? These businesses can carry on because they do not expect any brand identification among their customers and expect no customer loyalty at all; their business names are used only at airports and they aspire only to bleeding the captives.

In economy-class seating areas the airlines themselves, particularly discount airlines, follow a similar approach to customers. They can charge their perfectly contained customers anything for a coffee or a sandwich, expecting that the customers a) select the airline based largely on ticket prices, and b) expect to be gouged.

Airports also host the largest coffee and fast food chains. These are the food and drink ‘bargains’ to watch for at airports, because they tend not to gouge customers. Brand values and loyalty are important to these businesses, and they can’t generally afford to smear their own reputations by charging jaw-drop prices at certain locations – even if the captive market would accept those prices at the moment of a sale.

A related example: In Japanese subway stations you can buy little sandwiches and lunch boxes from simple vending stands; the food is nothing special, but it is fresh and inexpensive. The subway throng is a captive audience with few other choices nearby, but it is a clientele that will walk by every day. Repeat customers are critical to the vendors, hence no gouging.

If a business is built on a vision that extends only as far as a captive market then it might do okay within that little environment, gouging customers indefinitely (but what a grubby life). Any business that has growth and positive customer relationships as part of its marketing vision needs to think more generously about the people they serve, not about how to exploit them – that is what consumer orientation and CRM and good marketing are all about!