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Marketing digital
Marketing digital
Guía básica para digitalizar
tu empresa
Josep M. Martínez Polo
Jesús Martínez Sánchez
M. Concepción Parra Meroño
Director de la colección Manuales (comunicación): Lluís Pastor

Diseño de la colección: Editorial UOC

Primera edición en lengua castellana: abril 2015


Primera edición digital: junio 2015

© Josep Manuel Martínez Polo, Jesús Martínez Sánchez y M. Concepción Parra Meroño, del texto

© Diseño de la cubierta: Natàlia Serrano


© Editorial UOC (Oberta UOC Publishing, SL), de esta edición, 2015
Rambla del Poblenou 156
08018 Barcelona
http://www.editorialuoc.com

Realización editorial: Fotocomposición Gama, S.L

ISBN: 978-84-9064-839-1

Ninguna parte de esta publicación, incluyendo el diseño general y de la cubierta, puede ser copiada, reproducida, almacenada o transmi-
tida de ninguna forma ni por ningún medio, ya sea eléctrico, químico, mecánico, óptico, de grabación, de fotocopia o por otros métodos,
sin la autorización previa por escrito de los titulares del copyright.
Autores

Josep M. Martínez Polo


Licenciado en Filosofía y Ciencias de la Educación por la Universidad de Valencia.
Es profesor de la Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia UCAM, donde
imparte las asignaturas de Publicidad Interactiva y Marketing Digital. Es coautor del
libro Redes Sociales para estudiantes de comunicación, publicado por Editorial UOC.
@jmmartinez

Jesús Martínez Sánchez


Licenciado en Publicidad y RR.PP. por la Universidad Cardenal Herrera y doc-
tor por la Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia UCAM. Vicedecano de
Publicidad y RR.PP. en la UCAM y profesor en los grados de Comunicación,
Turismo y en diversos másteres.
@yesustomy

M. Concepción Parra Meroño


Doctora en Marketing y Organización de Empresas. Licenciada en Económicas.
Directora del máster en Marketing y Comunicación de la UCAM y profesora del
área de Marketing. Autora de varios libros y capítulos sobre marketing y compor-
tamiento del consumidor.
@ConchiParraM
© Editorial UOC Índice

Índice

Capítulo I. El comportamiento de los consumidores ha


cambiado y ahora todo es marketing.................................. 13
1. ¿Qué es y qué no es el marketing?..................................... 15
2. ¿Por qué es necesario ampliar el concepto de
marketing?.................................................................................. 16
3. ¿Cómo estudia el marketing al consumidor?.................... 19
4. ¿Y cuál es su relación con el marketing?........................... 21
5. ¿Cómo se relacionan el comportamiento del
consumidor y el marketing mix?........................................ 22
6. ¿Qué es la segmentación del mercado?............................. 25
7. ¿Por qué es importante un buen posicionamiento?........ 26
8. ¿Cómo se relacionan el producto y el consumidor?....... 27
9. ¿Es importante el precio para el consumidor?................. 29
10. ¿Cómo influye la distribución en el comportamiento
del consumidor?.................................................................... 31
11. ¿Cuál es la relación entre comunicación y
comportamiento del consumidor?..................................... 32
12. ¿Cómo es el consumidor en la sociedad occidental
actual?...................................................................................... 39
Bibliografía................................................................................... 42

Capítulo II. Las métricas son importantes. Las personas,


más importantes todavía......................................................... 43
1. La importancia de los datos................................................ 44
2. ¿Qué es la analítica web?...................................................... 46
3. ¿Cómo abordamos la calidad de los datos?...................... 50
4. Métricas piratas: Metodología AARRR para establecer

7
© Editorial UOC Marketing digital

objetivos.................................................................................. 51
5. ¿Cómo podemos visualizar los datos?............................... 53
6. Kit de herramientas del analista web................................. 54
7. ¿Qué se necesita para ser analista web?............................. 55
Para saber más: Entrevista a Alberto Martín
(Axel Springer)....................................................................... 58
Bibliografía................................................................................... 62

Capítulo III. La importancia de la web. La importancia del


diseño. La importancia de los contenidos......................... 65
1. Tener un plan......................................................................... 66
2. La importancia del diseño................................................... 69
3. Un nombre fácil de escribir, un tono constante de
comunicación y un logo sencillo son más que
suficientes............................................................................... 71
4. ¿Es mejor diseñar partiendo de cero o buscar una fórmula
que ya haya funcionado?...................................................... 74
5. La importancia de los contenidos...................................... 74
6. De nada sirve un sitio web comercial si este no convierte a
sus usuarios en clientes........................................................ 76
7. ¿Qué no es (exactamente) el marketing de contenidos?. 77
8. Inbound marketing y marketing de contenidos............... 78
9. Marketing de contenidos y estrategia de contenidos...... 78
10. ¿Qué se necesita para poder trabajar en marketing
digital?..................................................................................... 79
11. ¿Qué tareas tiene a su cargo un consultor de marketing
digital?..................................................................................... 81
Para saber más: Entrevista a Eva Sanagustín (redactora web
freelance)................................................................................ 82
Bibliografía................................................................................... 84

8
© Editorial UOC Índice

Capítulo IV. Google no es solo un buscador, ni una agencia


de publicidad... es algo más................................................... 87
1. Diez cosas que sabemos que son ciertas.......................... 90
1.1. Piensa en el usuario y lo demás vendrá solo........ 90
1.2. Es mejor hacer una sola cosa pero hacerla muy,
muy bien..................................................................... 91
1.3. Es mejor ser rápido que lento................................. 91
1.4. La democracia es una buena forma de gobierno
para la Web................................................................. 92
1.5. Las respuestas deben llegar a cualquier lugar....... 93
1.6. Se puede ganar dinero siendo honesto.................. 93
1.7. Siempre hay más información por descubrir........ 95
1.8. La necesidad de información traspasa todas las
fronteras...................................................................... 95
1.9. No hay que llevar traje para ser formal................. 96
1.10. Ser muy bueno no basta........................................... 96
2. Google es la compañía más influyente del mundo......... 97
3. Google como agencia de publicidad.................................. 100
4. Google AdWords. Google AdSense. YouTube................ 102
5. Google Web Designer.......................................................... 106
6. Remarketing........................................................................... 107
6.1. Formas de usar el remarketing con Google.......... 107
Conceptos básicos....................................................................... 109
Bibliografía................................................................................... 110

Capítulo V. Cómo actuar en redes sociales. Guía básica para


comunicar en social media....................................................... 111
1. Cómo actuar en redes sociales si eres una marca............ 116
2. Cómo actuar en redes sociales si eres empleado............. 117
3. Formar parte del grupo. Estar, porque todos están........ 120
4. ¿Con qué herramientas?....................................................... 121

9
© Editorial UOC Marketing digital

5. ¿Qué hacer cuando alguien nos critica en internet?........ 123


6. Guía básica para comunicar en social media................... 125
Bibliografía................................................................................... 128

Capítulo VI. A la publicidad digital solo la supera la


televisión (de momento). Internet, mobile y digital
signage............................................................................................ 129
1. Reparto del pastel................................................................. 130
2. La publicidad online tradicional......................................... 132
3. Formatos web........................................................................ 135
3.1. Formatos textuales.................................................... 135
3.2. Enlaces patrocinados................................................ 136
3.3. Formatos con texto e imagen fija........................... 136
3.4. Rich media................................................................. 138
3.5. Radio online............................................................... 139
3.6. Vídeos......................................................................... 139
3.7. Formatos publicitarios en televisión online.......... 140
4. ¿Nuevas tendencias?............................................................. 141
5. Kioscos digitales.................................................................... 142
6. La conexión social de la televisión..................................... 143
7. Publicidad wearable.............................................................. 145
8. YouTube como modelo de negocio publicitario............. 146
9. Digital signage...................................................................... 149
10. ¿Qué se necesita para hacer una buena publicidad
digital?..................................................................................... 151
Para saber más. Entrevista a José María Díaz......................... 154
Bibliografía................................................................................... 158

Capítulo VII. Cómo hemos cambiado: del banner a Google


AdWords. Anunciarse en IOS, Google Play
y Amazon...................................................................................... 161

10
© Editorial UOC Índice

1. Del banner a Google AdWords.......................................... 162


2. De LinkExchange (1996) a Chartboost (2015)................ 165
Para saber más. Entrevista a Nate Baker (@kneyght),
publisher relations manager de CHARTBOOST.......... 168
Bibliografía................................................................................... 174

Capítulo VIII. Marketing móvil. E-mail marketing.


Marketing de afiliación............................................................ 175
1. Marketing móvil.................................................................... 175
2. ¿Cómo funcionan Google Play y la App Store?.............. 178
3. ¿Cuánto cuesta desarrollar una app?.................................. 180
4. ¿Cuánto me cobran por tener mis apps en las tiendas
de Google o Apple?.............................................................. 182
5. ¿Cómo posiciono mi app en un market?......................... 183
6. ¿Y cuánto puedo ganar?....................................................... 184
7. E-mail marketing.................................................................. 185
8. Marketing de afiliación......................................................... 188
Bibliografía................................................................................... 192

Capítulo IX. Del e-commerce al poder de los usuarios.


Lecciones de emprendedores digitales............................... 195
Bibliografía................................................................................... 205

Capítulo X. Del ad exchange hasta el ZMOT.


Guía básica de vocabulario de marketing digital. Más de
100 términos para consultar.................................................... 207
Bibliografía................................................................................... 230

11
© Editorial UOC Capítulo I. El comportamiento de los consumidores…

Capítulo I
El comportamiento de los consumidores
ha cambiado y ahora todo es marketing

¡Escuchemos a los clientes, ellos saben lo que necesitan!


El consumidor es el objetivo más preciado del marketing, ya
que el marketing busca satisfacer las necesidades de los consumi-
dores y estos son seres complejos que no siempre se comportan
de forma racional a la hora de comprar, buscar información
sobre los productos, elegir el establecimiento donde adquirirlos
y propagar entre sus conocidos sus experiencias de compra y
consumo.
El estudio del comportamiento del consumidor es una de las
claves del éxito del marketing actual: ¿por qué compramos lo
que compramos?, ¿es solo una cuestión de calidad y de precio?,
¿basamos nuestras decisiones de compra únicamente en aspectos
racionales?
Los expertos en marketing se fijan cada vez más en los patro-
nes de conducta de los consumidores, sobre todo en tiempos de
dificultades económicas. Los productos son cada vez más pare-
cidos, lo que dificulta la elección de un producto u otro, pero, al
mismo tiempo, tenemos cada vez más y mejor información sobre
ellos, lo que facilita dicha elección. Además, los consumidores
también tenemos que elegir el establecimiento donde comprar o
a qué vendedor dirigirnos. Gracias a la investigación comercial,
todas estas decisiones se pueden estudiar y sirven para elaborar
los planes de acción que las empresas necesitan llevar a cabo para
tener éxito.

13
© Editorial UOC Marketing digital

Además de conocer los productos que ofrecen y los produc-


tos de la competencia, las empresas deben saber cuestiones bási-
cas sobre los consumidores, como, por ejemplo, dónde compran,
cuánto compran, quién o qué les influye a la hora de comprar,
cómo perciben los beneficios de los productos, qué los motiva a
comprar determinados productos y no otros, etc.
Toda esta información facilita la labor de los responsables de
marketing, ya que le ayuda a diseñar las estrategias y políticas ne-
cesarias para posicionarse correctamente en el mercado. En otras
palabras, la estrategia comercial diseñada y desarrollada por una
empresa va a depender del conocimiento que tenga acerca de los
consumidores, de ahí la importancia de estudiar el comportamien-
to del consumidor.
En este primer capítulo hablaremos de marketing y comporta-
miento del consumidor, para entender el enfoque que podremos
dar al marketing digital y para situar al consumidor en el centro
de este.
El estudio del comportamiento del consumidor está vincu-
lado a las acciones que desarrollan las empresas para ofrecer
productos en las mejores condiciones, no solamente en relación
con la calidad de estos, sino también con el precio, la entrega y
la información necesaria sobre dónde adquirirlos y cómo usarlos
o consumirlos. Todas estas acciones forman parte del marketing,
que es tanto una disciplina científica como una filosofía de ges-
tión empresarial, cuyo objetivo es la satisfacción de las necesida-
des de los consumidores1.

1 Parra y Beltrán (2011).

14
© Editorial UOC Capítulo I. El comportamiento de los consumidores…

1. ¿Qué es y qué no es el marketing?

En primer lugar, el marketing no es vender productos, es


mucho más que eso, y, además, es anterior a la venta. Así, por
ejemplo, cuando en Amazon diseñan su nueva web, cuando
Danone prueba nuevos sabores y envases de sus productos o
cuando El Pozo colabora con Médicos sin Fronteras ya se están
realizando acciones de marketing. El marketing tampoco es
publicidad, aunque esta se incluye en el marketing y ha adquirido
una gran importancia en la sociedad actual. Por último, se acusa
al marketing de crear necesidades, pero si un producto no satis-
face una necesidad, no se consume y no se vende.
El concepto actual del marketing tiene su origen en 1950 en la
Universidad de Harvard, con Theodore Levitt, que propone que
las empresas deben orientar sus productos hacia un mercado de
compradores que los van a consumir para satisfacer sus necesida-
des, lo que conocemos como orientación al marketing.
Pero ¿cómo llegar a los consumidores? Para ello, el marke-
ting desarrolla una serie de técnicas que consisten en identificar,
crear, desarrollar y servir a la demanda2. Como supondrás, esta
premisa es válida tanto para el marketing tradicional como para
el marketing digital.
Al mismo tiempo, no podemos olvidar que el marketing es
una actividad empresarial, por lo que supone diseñar y poner
en práctica diversas estrategias para alcanzar los objetivos de
la organización. De ahí que se utilicen los cuatro instrumentos
fundamentales del marketing o la mezcla de marketing, lo que
denominamos el marketing mix: el producto (product), el precio

2 Desde el punto de vista del marketing, la demanda hace referencia a los con-
sumidores, tanto actuales como futuros.

15
© Editorial UOC Marketing digital

(price), el sistema de distribución (place) y la comunicación (promo-


tion).

2. ¿Por qué es necesario ampliar el concepto


de marketing?

El marketing ha ido evolucionado a la par que lo ha hecho la


sociedad y ha sido necesario ampliar el concepto de marketing
por varias razones.
En primer lugar, el producto puede tener muchas formas.
Se comercializan productos físicos, como ropa, alimentos, perfu-
mes, etc., pero también se venden o mejor dicho se prestan ser-
vicios, como peluquería, servicios financieros, seguros. También
se venden personas, ya sean políticos, actores, etc.; y organizacio-
nes, como partidos políticos, asociaciones, universidades e inclu-
so ideas. Además, un mismo producto puede servir para satisfa-
cer varias necesidades. Por ejemplo, el que adquiere un teléfono
móvil satisface la necesidad básica de comunicación pero pue-
de que también satisfaga la de prestigio por asociar la marca con
cierto estatus social o porque lo que busque sea una cámara foto-
gráfica de mucha resolución.
En segundo lugar, toda organización debe relacionarse con
distintos grupos interesados en sus productos, llamados stake-
holders3, tales como: proveedores (empleados, vendedores de
material, bancos, agencias de publicidad o consultores), clientes
(consumidores inmediatos), directivos (responsables de la orga-
nización), público activo (grupos de presión, medios, agencias

3 Kotler, Cámara, Grande y Cruz (2000).

16
© Editorial UOC Capítulo I. El comportamiento de los consumidores…

gubernamentales, etc.) y el público en general que pueden desa-


rrollar diferentes actitudes respecto a la organización.
En tercer lugar, toda organización se enfrenta a la competen-
cia de otras organizaciones. Es fundamental utilizar herramientas
de marketing para fomentar la aceptación del producto, la mejora
continua, una política de precios acertada y una estrategia de dis-
tribución y comunicación acorde a los intereses de sus clientes.
Así, se puede afirmar que el marketing es un conjunto de
actividades destinadas a satisfacer las necesidades y deseos de los
clientes, a cambio de una utilidad o beneficio para las empresas u
organizaciones que la ponen en práctica; razón por la cual nadie
duda de que el marketing es indispensable para lograr el éxito
en los mercados, ya sean face to face o digitales. En este contex-
to, entendemos el marketing como una disciplina moderna que
debe ser capaz de adaptarse a los cambios que se producen en
el entorno, sociales, políticos, y por supuesto tecnológicos, para
ayudar a las organizaciones de cualquier naturaleza a conseguir
sus objetivos.
Por tanto, nos decantamos por la definición de Santesmases
(2012), que entiende el marketing como: “un modo de conce-
bir y ejecutar la relación de intercambio, con la finalidad de que
sea satisfactoria para las partes que intervienen y a la sociedad,
mediante el desarrollo, valoración, distribución y promoción, por
una de las partes, de los bienes, servicios o ideas que la otra parte
necesita”.
Esto nos indica que el marketing es algo más que vender
productos o prestar servicios. Como podemos observar en la
figura 1.1, la venta tiene como objetivo que el cliente compre lo

17
© Editorial UOC Marketing digital

que la empresa vende; el marketing, por su parte, pretende que la


empresa ofrezca lo que el cliente quiere4.

Figura 1.1. Enfoque de ventas frente a enfoque de marketing

Fuente: Parra y Beltrán (2011).

La orientación al marketing se fundamenta en acciones a


largo plazo, ya que el proceso de adaptación a las necesidades
de los clientes así lo es, a diferencia del enfoque de ventas, que
fija sus objetivos a corto plazo. Esta filosofía es compatible con
la idea de que el marketing prepara el terreno para la venta y
que los compradores compran los productos porque tienen la
esperanza de que satisfagan sus deseos y necesidades, por lo que
el producto se convierte en un medio para alcanzar un fin, que
en términos de consumo es una necesidad. En otras palabras, el
marketing actual debe fundamentarse en acciones a largo plazo,

4 Levitt (1975).

18
© Editorial UOC Capítulo I. El comportamiento de los consumidores…

mientras que la venta se basa en acciones a corto plazo, de ahí


el concepto de marketing de relaciones o marketing relacional,
que se basa en la continuidad de las relaciones entre empresa
y cliente incluso después de la transacción con el objetivo de
fidelizar al cliente. Este nuevo enfoque, que amplía el enfoque
tradicional de marketing, se basa en el objetivo principal de las
empresas de retener a sus clientes generándoles altos niveles de
satisfacción, sin olvidar otros conceptos, como la recuperación
de clientes insatisfechos.
El objetivo del marketing relacional se ha convertido en un
objetivo primordial para las empresas, de modo que, como afir-
ma Huete (1997) “si tuviera que elegir una sola pregunta para
diagnosticar la salud de un negocio, preguntaría por el porcentaje
de clientes repetidores”.
Para fidelizar a los clientes es por tanto necesario indagar
acerca de los clientes actuales pero también de los potenciales.
Así, podremos organizar y clasificar a los consumidores y usua-
rios según sus características particulares y generales, ya sea en el
negocio tradicional o en el entorno digital.

3. ¿Cómo estudia el marketing


al consumidor?

El estudio del comportamiento del consumidor se puede


abordar desde distintos puntos de vista; cada uno de los cuales
tiene sus particularidades y sus limitaciones.
En economía estudiamos al consumidor como un ser racional
que elige entre las diferentes alternativas, buscando maximizar su
bienestar con sus recursos, que son limitados. Sin embargo, esta

19
© Editorial UOC Marketing digital

visión puede resultar insuficiente en la actualidad, dado que es muy


posible que el consumidor no sepa lo que quiere con exactitud
o que no sepa explicarlo, o que necesite información adicional.
Además, en muchas ocasiones se muestra inconsistente al desear
un producto de marca pero querer pagar el precio más bajo.
Además, esta visión económica no tiene en cuenta que los
gustos o las preferencias de los consumidores cambian continua-
mente y son difíciles de entender. Los consumidores son cada
vez más exigentes; de ahí la importancia de que las empresas
estudien su comportamiento.
Desde el punto de vista de la psicología estudiamos al con-
sumidor como individuo, y abordamos sus motivaciones, sus
percepciones, sus actitudes, su personalidad y sus patrones de
aprendizaje. La necesidad de consumir, las acciones y reacciones
a los diferentes productos y a los mensajes, así como la persona-
lidad y las experiencias anteriores, afectan al proceso de compra
y a la elección entre los diferentes productos.
Por su parte, la psicología social estudia al individuo en rela-
ción con un grupo, para comprender cómo el hecho de formar
parte del grupo o de la sociedad afecta a los sentimientos y con-
ductas, lo que también puede afectar a nuestro comportamiento
como compradores.
Otro punto de vista en el estudio del consumidor y su con-
ducta lo aporta la sociología, que estudia el comportamiento de
los grupos y las interacciones entre sus miembros. Así, la inte-
gración de la persona en un grupo social o en una determinada
familia puede hacer que cambien sus decisiones de compra y su
forma de comportarse en el mercado.
Por su parte, la antropología estudia a los seres humanos den-
tro de la sociedad, y analiza las creencias, los valores y las cos-

20
© Editorial UOC Capítulo I. El comportamiento de los consumidores…

tumbres, así como la influencia de la cultura. Todo ello se puede


aplicar al comportamiento de compra del consumidor.
Finalmente, para analizar el comportamiento de compra y
todas las características e influencias descritas en los párrafos
anteriores, necesitamos herramientas que nos proporcionan otras
disciplinas, como la estadística, las matemáticas y la informática.

4. ¿Y cuál es su relación con el marketing?

El estudio del consumidor desde una perspectiva de marke-


ting recoge todas las aportaciones realizadas por la economía, la
psicología, la sociología, etc. Es a mediados de los años sesenta
del siglo XX cuando el estudio del comportamiento del con-
sumidor y el marketing se relacionaron porque identifican al
consumidor y sus necesidades como objetivo principal. Así, el
estudio del comportamiento del consumidor se configura como
fundamental para diseñar estrategias de marketing, y ha sido
mediante su investigación como se ha descubierto que las per-
sonas son complejas y tienen necesidades de diversa naturaleza,
tanto psicológicas como sociales, que pueden ser satisfechas con
la compra y el consumo de bienes y servicios muy diferentes, ya
sea en entornos tradicionales o en entornos digitales.
Por tanto, el estudio del comportamiento del consumidor
desde una perspectiva de marketing es un enfoque integrador de
los demás enfoques, que se centra en las necesidades del consu-
midor y, además5:

5 Parra y Beltrán (2013).

21
© Editorial UOC Marketing digital

–– Incluye las variables psicológicas.


–– Incluye las variables sociales.
–– Incluye las variables antropológicas.
–– Incluye las variables económicas con modificaciones.
–– Incluye las variables de marketing: producto, precio, comu-
nicación y distribución.
–– Considera varias etapas en el proceso de decisión de com-
pra.
–– Incluye los factores internos que condicionan la compra.
–– Incluye los factores externos que condicionan la compra.

5. ¿Cómo se relacionan el comportamiento


del consumidor y el marketing mix?

Como ya has podido ver, el marketing sirve para que las


empresas puedan satisfacer las necesidades de los consumidores.
Para ello, se pueden realizar investigaciones de mercado, que
permiten definir el público objetivo. Una vez definido el pro-
ducto de acuerdo con las necesidades del mercado objetivo, es
necesario establecer las estrategias que nos permitirán conseguir
nuestros objetivos, que en la mayoría de las ocasiones sirven con
pequeñas matizaciones tanto para el marketing tradicional como
para el marketing digital.
Con el fin de diseñar las estrategias de marketing más adecua-
das, las empresas utilizan varios instrumentos que se combinan
para conseguir sus objetivos. Dicha combinación se denomina
tradicionalmente marketing mix o mezcla de marketing, y la
definimos como:

22
© Editorial UOC Capítulo I. El comportamiento de los consumidores…

Mezcla o combinación de cuatro instrumentos fundamentales: el producto


que se ofrece, su precio, el sistema de distribución que se utiliza para hacerlo
llegar al mercado y la comunicación que utiliza la empresa u organización
para informar, persuadir y hacer recordar al cliente6.
Definiendo ahora cada uno de dichos instrumentos enten-
deremos mejor el papel del marketing en la sociedad actual así
como que el marketing no solo es la venta y la promoción del
producto.

1) El producto es cualquier bien, servicio o idea que se ofrece


al mercado, cuya utilidad consiste en satisfacer las necesidades
del consumidor. El concepto de producto hace referencia no
solo a sus características o atributos intrínsecos, sino también a
los beneficios que proporciona, las emociones que puede generar
o las experiencias que genera al consumidor.
2) El precio no es solo la cantidad de dinero que se paga
por adquirir un producto, sino también el tiempo empleado en
conseguirlo, además del esfuerzo y las molestias necesarias para
obtenerlo.
3) La distribución tiene como misión poner el producto
demandado a disposición del mercado, de manera que se facili-
te y estimule su adquisición por el consumidor. Por otra parte,
igualmente muy importante, está el canal de distribución, que es
el camino seguido por el producto, a través de intermediarios,
desde el productor al consumidor.
4) La comunicación de un producto es el conjunto de acti-
vidades que tienen como objetivo comunicar los beneficios que

6 En su acepción anglosajona, el marketing mix alude a las llamadas 4 P del


marketing (product, price, place y promotion).

23
© Editorial UOC Marketing digital

reporta el producto y persuadir al mercado objetivo de que lo


compre a quien lo ofrece.

Cada uno de los instrumentos del marketing están conforma-


dos por una serie de recursos o actividades cuyo detalle presen-
tamos en la siguiente figura.

Figura 1.2. Los instrumentos del marketing mix

MARKETING MIX

PRODUCTO PRECIO DISTRIBUCIÓN COMUNICACIÓN

Variedad de Lista de precios Canales Publicidad


productos Descuentos Cobertura Venta personal
Calidad Rebajas Variedad Promoción de
Características Periodo de Localización ventas
Diseño pago Logística Relaciones
Nombre de marca Créditos Transporte públicas
Empaquetado Métodos de Marketing
Tamaños fijación de directo
Servicios precios
Garantías
Devoluciones

PÚBLICO OBJETIVO

Fuente: Parra y Beltrán (2013).

Ahora bien, la combinación del mix de marketing estará en


función de la estrategia que deseemos llevar a cabo. Entre las
estrategias de marketing más frecuentes debemos hablar de la
segmentación y del posicionamiento.

24
© Editorial UOC Capítulo I. El comportamiento de los consumidores…

6. ¿Qué es la segmentación del mercado?

La segmentación del mercado es un proceso de división del


mercado en subgrupos de consumidores homogéneos, con el
propósito de llevar a cabo una estrategia comercial diferenciada
para cada grupo, que suponga la satisfacción de sus necesidades
de manera más efectiva y a su vez alcanzar los objetivos comer-
ciales de la empresa7.
Mediante la segmentación comprenderemos mejor las necesi-
dades y los deseos de los consumidores, a la vez que entendere-
mos mejor sus respuestas a las ofertas comerciales. Así pues, el
objetivo principal de la segmentación es identificar los grupos de
consumidores y no el crearlos.
Una buena estrategia de segmentación nos permitirá evitar a la
competencia directa, gracias a la diferenciación de los productos,
de los precios, del estilo o del diseño del producto; al embalaje
o al envase; al atractivo promocional; al sistema de distribución,
o al servicio ofrecido, todo lo cual también puede hacerse en los
nuevos medios de comunicación con los consumidores, es decir,
online a través de cualquier dispositivo con conexión a internet.
De este modo, la segmentación solo resulta interesante cuan-
do el esfuerzo de marketing realizado para satisfacer mejor las
necesidades de los clientes sea rentable, por lo que habrá que
identificar a los segmentos más atractivos.
Por tanto definimos un segmento como un grupo amplio e
identificable dentro de un determinado mercado, que tiene en
común los mismos deseos, poder adquisitivo, localización geo-
gráfica, actitud, hábitos frente a la compra, etc.

7 Santesmases (2012).

25
© Editorial UOC Marketing digital

Los responsables de marketing no crean segmentos, sino que


su función es identificar y seleccionar aquellos que son más atrac-
tivos. Las empresas pueden diseñar, comunicar, entregar el pro-
ducto, ponerle un precio y usar los canales de distribución más
adecuados de modo que satisfaga al segmento objetivo. Al mismo
tiempo, tienen que competir con otras empresas que se dirigen
al mismo segmento mediante estrategias de marketing. Por ello,
desde la óptica del marketing afirmamos que los segmentos exis-
ten en función de las características de los consumidores y no en
función de los productos que satisfacen sus necesidades.

7. ¿Por qué es importante un buen


posicionamiento?

La dirección de marketing debe dar al producto un significado


concreto para un determinado público objetivo en comparación
con el que pueda dar la competencia. Esto es importante tanto
en el comercio tradicional como en el comercio electrónico, de
ahí que en capítulos posteriores hablaremos de posicionamiento
web, que podemos medir a través de herramientas especializadas.

El posicionamiento es el lugar mental que ocupa la concepción del pro-


ducto y su imagen8 cuando se compara con el resto de los productos o marcas
competidores. Además, indica lo que los consumidores piensan sobre las
marcas y productos que existen en el mercado.

8 La imagen es un representación mental de los atributos y beneficios percibidos


del producto o la marca (Santesmases, 2012).

26
© Editorial UOC Capítulo I. El comportamiento de los consumidores…

Desde el punto de vista del marketing, el posicionamiento


es relevante cuando se tiene en cuenta la percepción del con-
sumidor sobre el producto, marca o empresa, al determinar la
localización de este en función de sus atributos más relevantes,
ya sean precio, calidad u otras características. Lo importante no
es la percepción de la empresa sino la del consumidor, puesto
que productos diferentes pueden ser percibidos por los consu-
midores como muy similares y productos muy similares pueden
ser percibidos como diferentes.
Para encontrar el posicionamiento ideal hay que saber qué
opinan los clientes de lo que ofrece nuestra empresa y qué
queremos que el mercado objetivo piense de nuestra mezcla de
marketing y de la de los competidores. De esta manera podremos
diferenciar el producto o los restantes instrumentos de marketing
(precio, comunicación y distribución) y asociarlo con los atribu-
tos deseados por el consumidor.

8. ¿Cómo se relacionan el producto


y el consumidor?

Cualquier empresa desea que sus productos sean reconocidos


por los consumidores y que se identifiquen con ellos, que los
compren y los consuman, y además que sean leales. Por ello, rea-
lizan estrategias relacionadas con sus productos para que tomen
contacto con ellos, tales como promociones, campañas de publi-
cidad o recomendación de otros clientes.
De este modo, el consumidor, al tomar contacto con el pro-
ducto, puede percibir su calidad, sus características más relevan-
tes, su diseño, su marca, su envase, su embalaje, las garantías, las

27
© Editorial UOC Marketing digital

cláusulas de devolución y además también podrá informarse de


otros productos de la empresa. Todos ellos aspectos clave para
que el consumidor elija nuestra marca, nuestro producto, y, por
ende, nuestra empresa. Además, todos son elementos que for-
man parte de alguna manera del producto, y ahora los definire-
mos brevemente.
La marca es el nombre, término, señal, símbolo, diseño o
combinación de alguno de ellos que identifica los bienes y servi-
cios de un vendedor o grupo de vendedores, y los diferencia de
los competidores9. En algunos productos la marca es fundamen-
tal para las preferencias de los consumidores, por ejemplo en los
coches, en la ropa y el calzado, etc.
El proceso de diseño del producto puede llegar a ser
muy complejo y es necesario recorrer varias fases. En primer
lugar, se necesitan las especificaciones básicas del producto.
Posteriormente, se realiza un análisis de viabilidad, y si este
resulta positivo se realiza el diseño preliminar. Por último, tiene
lugar la fase de implantación, donde generalmente hay que rea-
nalizar tanto el producto como el proceso en sí. Todas las fases
están muy relacionadas y, en numerosas ocasiones, se desarro-
llan simultáneamente. En el entorno digital es muy importante
contar con un buen diseño para nuestra web, que sea atractiva,
que diga algo, para que el usuario no la abandone fácilmente.
Además, también será necesario un buen posicionamiento para
que nos encuentren fácilmente y en los primeros lugares de los
buscadores. Para ello, será fundamental ponerse en el lugar de los
usuarios con el fin de elegir bien las palabras clave por las que
nos buscarán.

9 Bennet (1995).

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© Editorial UOC Capítulo I. El comportamiento de los consumidores…

La calidad de un producto es también importante, si bien es


necesario diferenciar entre calidad objetiva y calidad percibida.
La objetiva se refiere al cumplimiento de ciertas especificaciones
técnicas10 y la percibida es la que el consumidor indica que tiene
un producto; esta última es por tanto subjetiva y consiste en la
evaluación que hace el consumidor de nuestro producto. Desde
el punto de vista del marketing y del comportamiento del consu-
midor, la calidad percibida es la más importante.
Por último, en relación con la diferenciación del producto, son
muy importantes el embalaje, el envase y la etiqueta. El envase es
la forma de proteger físicamente el producto y presentarlo, y por
tanto diferenciarlo. El embalaje se refiere a los procedimientos
y materiales utilizados para proteger y conservar el producto
durante el proceso de distribución y almacenaje; hay firmas que
dan más importancia al embalaje y obvian el envase, con lo que
ahorran costes, como por ejemplo IKEA. Finalmente, la etique-
ta es la parte de un producto que transmite información sobre
el producto y el vendedor. Puede ser parte del envase o estar
adherida al producto11.

9. ¿Es importante el precio


para el consumidor?

El precio es un instrumento de marketing muy importante


para diseñar estrategias porque tiene repercusiones en la deman-
da, es decir, en el comportamiento de los consumidores. Entre

10 Santesmases (2012).
11 Stanton y Etzel (2007) y Fischer y Espejo (2004).

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© Editorial UOC Marketing digital

las consideraciones más relevantes sobre el precio destacamos


las siguientes:

–– Se trata de un instrumento de marketing cuyos efectos


son a corto plazo, ya que se puede actuar con mucha más
rapidez y flexibilidad que con el resto de los instrumentos,
y además tiene efectos inmediatos sobre las ventas y, por
ende, sobre los beneficios12.
–– El precio es un instrumento competitivo, ya que se usa
como arma contra la competencia, pudiendo dar lugar a
guerras de precios en las que hay un claro ganador, el con-
sumidor.
–– Es el único instrumento de marketing que genera ingresos
directos. Esto es así porque el resto de los instrumentos
suponen un gasto, al menos al principio. Una bajada en el
precio supone un incremento en la demanda del producto,
lo que se traduce en más ventas y, por ello, en más ingresos
y beneficios, es decir, se producen economías de escala.
–– En muchas decisiones de compra, la única información de
la que dispone el consumidor es el precio. Por ello, en estas
ocasiones se convierte en un indicador muy importante
acerca de la calidad del producto, de la imagen de la marca
o de la oportunidad de compra.
–– Las repercusiones psicológicas del precio sobre el consu-
midor o usuario son muy importantes. Así, el precio debe
estar acorde con el valor percibido por el consumidor. Si
es demasiado bajo, desconfiaremos de los beneficios del
producto, y si es demasiado alto, no lo compraremos.

12 Pride y Ferrell (1987).

30
© Editorial UOC Capítulo I. El comportamiento de los consumidores…

–– Además, la sensibilidad a los precios puede variar en fun-


ción del ciclo económico. En épocas de crisis vemos dismi-
nuir nuestra capacidad de compra y somos más sensibles a
las variaciones en los precios.

10. ¿Cómo influye la distribución en el


comportamiento del consumidor?

Todas las actividades y estrategias encaminadas a llevar los


productos desde el lugar de fabricación hacia el punto de venta
en las cantidades precisas, en condiciones óptimas de consumo
y uso y en el momento y lugar en el que los clientes necesiten o
deseen constituyen el mix de distribución.
Para el consumidor supone resolver dos problemas: dónde
comprar y qué comprar. La primera cuestión se refiere al esta-
blecimiento o tienda (real o virtual) en el que elegirá entre las
diversas posibilidades existentes. La segunda cuestión, qué com-
prar, se relaciona con la elección de marca o producto, que tam-
bién está relacionada con la existencia de ofertas, promociones,
ambiente de la tienda o sitio web, y disposición de los productos.
Las principales características de la distribución se pueden
resumir del siguiente modo:

–– Como el marketing, su objetivo fundamental es el inter-


cambio y la satisfacción de las necesidades de los clientes.
–– Los canales de distribución se originan por la relación entre
la producción y el consumo.

31
© Editorial UOC Marketing digital

–– Se trata de un instrumento estratégico (a largo plazo) de


marketing que requiere una adecuada planificación y con-
trol.
–– Supone una serie de actividades o flujos (de dinero, de
información, de producto físico, etc.).
–– En ocasiones es necesario contar con otras personas u
organismos para que el producto o servicio llegue a los
consumidores finales en buenas condiciones. Incluso en las
relaciones comerciales a través de internet, podemos optar
por distribuir nuestros productos o servicios directamente
o a través de intermediarios. Por ejemplo, para visitar un
monumento como La Alhambra puedo adquirir las entra-
das en Ticketmaster.
–– La distribución comercial tiene que adaptarse a los cambios
en el mercado, la competencia y el entorno, por lo que
tiene carácter dinámico. Así, cada vez es más frecuente la
distribución de productos y servicios a través de internet.

11. ¿Cuál es la relación entre comunicación


y comportamiento del consumidor?

Hasta ahora hemos mostrado la importancia de ofrecer el


producto adecuado, a un precio bien aceptado y en las condicio-
nes de entrega más idóneas. Sin embargo, esto no es suficiente si
no comunican adecuadamente las características y beneficios del
producto, dónde comprarlo o las promociones que existen, por-
que los consumidores no nos elegirán, ya que aquellas empresas
que se comuniquen mejor tendrán más posibilidades de éxito.

32
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
As for Mr. Trimblerigg, having found that there was no public for it, he
relinquished goodness of the first water, and fell back upon relative
goodness and relative truth, in which, as a matter of fact, he had a
more instinctive belief.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Intimations of Immortality
WHEN nations which preach Christianity go to war, their truth has
necessarily to become relative; they cannot tell the truth about
themselves; they cannot tell the truth about their enemies; still less
can they tell the truth about Christianity. For doing that last, a Free
Church minister in a certain land of hope and glory lying West,—he
had merely issued the Sermon on the Mount as a circular—was
tarred and feathered as a demonstration of Christian-mindedness by
his belligerent fellow-countrymen. And nearly everybody said that it
served him right.
So when Relative Truth became a spiritual as well as a military
necessity, Mr. Trimblerigg, the inventor of the doctrine in its most
modern form, came gloriously into his own. In other words he
became the fashion.
The War gave him the time and the opportunity of his life. He had
begun by adopting—first pacifism, then benevolent neutrality; but he
saw quickly that there was not a public for either. And as he listened
to the heart-beats of his countrymen roused for battle, a quick
application of his doctrine of Relative Truth restored his mind to
sanity. After that he never wavered; and though he often spoke with
two voices, one day telling the workers, whom he was sent to preach
to, that they were heroes, and another that they were slackers, and
victims of drink; one day demonstrating that the National Executive’s
action had always come just too late, another that it had always
come miraculously up to time; one day protesting the mildness and
equity of his country’s intentions toward those who were
unnecessarily prolonging the war, another—when prospects began
to look brighter—threatening things of a much more drastic
character, in terms drawn from the prize-ring; though thus from day
to day and week to week, he spoke in varied tones, fitting himself to
the occasion, always a forefront figure, occasionally pushing others
out of his way; nevertheless his motive and aim remained constant
(nor when nations go to war is anything more necessary for their
salvation)—the ardent assertion, namely, of the absolute
righteousness of his country’s cause, and of the blameless
antecedents leading up to it.
And though Mr. Trimblerigg’s truth was often extremely relative, it
was nearly always successful; and if any man by tireless energy,
resilient spirits, continuous ubiquity in pulpit and on platform,
alertness, invention, suggestiveness, adaptability, rapid change of
front in the ever-shifting tactics of propaganda,—now conciliatory
and defensive, meek but firm; now whole-heartedly aggressive and
vision-clear of coming victory—if by such qualities, richly and rapidly
blended outside the direct line of fire, any man could ever be said to
have won a war, in a larger and wider sense than the little drummer
boy who lays down his life for his drum,—that compliment might
have been paid, when all was done, to the unbloodstained Mr.
Trimblerigg,—and was.
In the person of Mr. Trimblerigg the Free Evangelical Church had
lifted up its head and neighed like a war-horse, saying among the
trumpets, ha! ha! to the thunder of the captains and the shouting:
and in the person of Mr. Trimblerigg thanks were publicly tendered to
it, when all the fighting was over. And though Mr. Trimblerigg
received neither title, nor outward adornment, nor emolument, he
became, from that day on, a figure of international significance,—the
first perhaps since great old combative Martin Luther, to attain so
high and controversial a prominence in divided Christendom on his
spiritual merits alone.
It may sound cynical to say that the greatness of nations has very
largely been built up on the lies they have told of each other. And yet
it is a true statement; for you have only to compare their histories,
and especially the histories of their wars (upon which young patriots
are trained to become heroes), in order to realize that the day of
naked and unashamed truth has not yet arrived: that so long as
nations stand to be worshipped, and flags to be fought for, truth can
only be relative. From which it follows that while nations are at war
too much truth is bad for them; and not only for them but for religion
also. And that is where and why Mr. Trimblerigg found his place, and
fitted it so exactly. I leave it at that. He became a national hero; and
truly it was not from lack of courage or conviction that he had seen
no fighting. He was short, and fat, and over forty; and his oratorical
gifts were more valuable where the sound of gunfire did not drown
them; otherwise he would have preached his gospel of the relative
beatitudes as willingly from the cannon’s mouth as from anywhere.
A day came, gunfire having ended, when he, and an Archbishop,
and a Prime Minister all stood on a platform together, and spoke to
an exalted gathering too glittering in its rank and distinction to be
called an assembled multitude, though its mere numbers ran into
thousands. The Archbishop sat in the middle; and the two ministers,
the political and the spiritual, sat on either side of him; and if they
were not as like each other as two peas, and did not, by both
speaking at once, rattle together like peas upon a drum, they were
nevertheless birds very much of a feather; and when it came to the
speaking, they fitted each other wonderfully. The Archbishop came
first and spoke well; the Prime Minister followed and spoke better;
Mr. Trimblerigg came last and spoke best of all. The audience told
him so; there was no doubt of it. Field-Marshals and Rear-Admirals
applauded him, Duchesses waved their handkerchiefs at him; a
Dowager-Countess, of Low Church antecedents, became next day a
member of the Free Evangelicals; the mere strength of his
personality had converted her.
Mr. Trimblerigg might well think after this that a visible halo, though
not necessary, had it reappeared just then, would not have come
amiss. From his point of view the meeting could not have been more
successful; he went down from the platform more famous than when
he went up on it. And it was not his speech alone that did it: it was in
the air.
The great Napoleon was said to have a star: Mr. Trimblerigg had an
atmosphere; and though it was not really the larger of the two, to his
contemporaries on earth it seemed larger.
It was just about this time, when Mr. Trimblerigg was obviously
becoming a candidate for national honours after his death, that he
attended the public funeral of a great Free Church statesman whose
war-winning activities had been closely associated with his own. And
as of the two, Mr. Trimblerigg had played the larger part, the
prophetic inference was obvious; and though in that high-vaulted
aisle, amid uniforms and decorations and wands of office, his
demure little figure looked humble and unimportant, he was a
marked man for the observation of all who had come to observe.
It was an occasion on which Free Churchmen had reason to feel
proud. Impelled by the feeling of the nation—still in its early days of
gratitude before victory had begun to taste bitter—the Episcopal
Church had opened her doors to receive, into that place of highest
honour, the dust of one who had lived outside her communion and
politically had fought against her. But it was dust only (ashes, that is
to say); and while to Mr. Trimblerigg’s perception the whole
ceremony, the music, the ritual, the vestments, the crape-scarved
uniforms, and the dark crowd of celebrities which formed a
background, were deeply impressive in their beauty and symbolism,
the little casket of cremated ashes at the centre of it all was not.
In that forced economizing of space, the sense of the individual
personality had been lost, or brought to insignificance. It gave him an
uncomfortable feeling; he did not like it; he wondered why. So long
as his thoughts went linked with the indwelling genius of that temple
of famous memories he felt thrilled and edified; but whenever his eye
returned to the small casket, he experienced a repeated shock and
felt discomfited. The condition here imposed, to make national
obsequies possible, seemed to him not merely a humiliating one; it
spelt annihilation; what remained had ceased to be personal. The
temple became a museum; in it with much ceremony an exhibit was
being deposited in its case.
And so, pondering deeply on these things, he returned home; and
added to his will (signing and dating it with a much earlier date) an
instruction for his executors, ‘My body is not to be cremated.’
Genius is economy. It could not have been more modestly done.
Somewhere or another, very near to where he had stood that
afternoon, a grave was waiting for him. Those few strokes of the pen
had decided that its dimensions should be not eighteen inches by
ten; but five feet four by two.
But the time was not yet: the instruction added to his will need not
begin to take effect for a good many years. Meanwhile his corner of
immortality waited for him, measured by himself to suit his own taste.
It came back to him then as a pleasant simile of fancy, that he had
had an uncle who was an undertaker. It ran in the family. Here was
Mr. Trimblerigg—his own!
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Peace-Work
TO become the spiritual voice of a nation is a rare experience, and in
the history of the race it has come to the individual but seldom. But
when it happens, he is a greater power than military leader, or
politician, or popular preacher, unless in one man all three functions
find themselves combined; then, without much justification in fact, a
people may mistake the combination for the more rare and genuine
article.
It could not exactly be said of Mr. Trimblerigg at this time that he was
a military leader; but the idea had been industriously disseminated,
by his admirers and by himself during the war, that had he been he
would have been a brilliant one. Nor was he exactly a politician; but
he had been very busy and energetic in putting the politicians right,
so that, as they went out of favour in public estimation, he came in.
For the rest, a popular preacher he was, and a very wonderful one;
though it is a curious fact that his sermons and speeches do not read
well in print. Mr. Trimblerigg’s orations were gymnastic exercises and
histrionic performances combined; and these things lose their effect
when reduced to print. Nevertheless he had now become a Voice,
and the sound of him travelled wherever his native tongue was
spoken, war-conditions having given it an atmosphere that it could
fill.
His military instinct he had mainly shown by running about in
moments of crisis and pinning his faith to commanders who up till
then had escaped defeat. When he found he had made a mistake,
he dropped them so quickly that nobody remembered he had ever
believed in them; and having thus discovered three or four and lost
them again, he finally hit upon the right one. Having done that, he did
not allow it to be forgotten, so that the reputation which survived the
final and triumphant catastrophe remained partly his.
His political instinct produced more definite and more solid results;
he persuaded the politicians to do a lot of things which at other times
they would not have dared. Some of these things were not very
scrupulous, and others were not very successful; but they were all
military necessities, and as only the relative truth was told about
them, they took their place in the general scheme of things; and if
they did not exactly do good, they were good for the morale of the
nation for the time being.
And while he thus persuaded the politicians to do things hitherto
impossible for the benefit of the whole nation, he persuaded the Free
Evangelicals also; and in his own time and his own way he secured
for Isabel Sparling and others the desire of their souls which had
been so long denied them. But in that matter, though the thing was
done well and quickly when it was done, he missed something of his
intended effect from the fact that the whole world was then so busy
about war that nothing else seemed much to matter. The sudden
admission of women to the ministry appeared then a mere side-
issue, an emergency measure devised to meet the shortage of men
theologically qualified for the vacant pastorates of congregations
abruptly depleted of their young male element. Thus Mr.
Trimblerigg’s very real achievement in the pulpiteering of women
was regarded, even among the Free Evangelicals, far more as a
war-product than as his own.
Also for Isabel Sparling herself, whom he wished to impress, it had
ceased much to matter. She had become a Second Adventist; and
among the Second Adventists it was admitted that women could
prophesy as well as men. Miss Sparling had gone prophesying to
America; and had caused a great sensation in New York by
prophesying that Brooklyn Bridge had become unsafe, and would fall
if America did not enter the war. She gave a date: and America
saved Brooklyn Bridge to posterity only just in time. After that the
success of Miss Sparling’s American mission was assured; and
whenever the States seemed momentarily to slacken in their
purpose or diminish in their zeal for the rescue of a civilization they
did not understand, Miss Sparling selected some cherished
institution or monument, and began threatening its life; and when,
after due warning a bomb was discovered inside the statue of Liberty
just preparing to go off, she got headlines for Second Adventism
which had never been equalled since Barnum’s landing of Jumbo
(representative of a still older civilization than that which was now
imperilled) some forty years before.
All this is told here merely to indicate what a match to himself Mr.
Trimblerigg had missed by not marrying Isabel Sparling in the days
of his youth. Had they only put their heads together earlier, kingdoms
might have come of which the world has now missed its chance—not
knowing what it has missed; for there can be no doubt that its
spiritual adhesions are not now what they were ten years ago; the
pulpit has sagged a little on its foundations and congregations have
become critical, sceptical even, though they still attend. The doctrine
of Relative Truth has undone more than it intended; and though Mr.
Trimblerigg was not a disappointed man at the moment when war
declared itself over, disappointment was waiting him.
Not at first, as I say. At first, no doubt, as he pulled the wires, he
thought he was plucking from harpstrings of gold, harmonies which
could be heard in Heaven. But his atmosphere affected him; and just
when victory brought him spiritual opportunities such as had never
been his before, he had a sharp attack of the Old Testament, and his
self-righteousness became as the self-righteousness of Moses and
the prophets all rolled into one.
It was then, perceiving that a huge and expectant public was waiting
for him to give the word, that he sent forth the fiery cross bearing
upon it as the battle-cry of peace the double motto ‘Skin the
Scapegoat,’—‘Hew Agag.’
Both sounded well, and both caught on, and for a brief while served
the occasion: but neither made a success of it. The skinning of the
scapegoat lasted for years; but in the process, it became so
denuded by mange that when the skin was finally obtained it proved
worthless. As for Agag he did not come to be hewn at all, walking
delicately; on the contrary he ran and hid himself in a safe place,
where, though the hewers pretended that they meant to get at him,
they knew they could not. And as a consequence Agag remains
unhewn to this day.
And, as a matter of fact, almost from the first, Mr. Trimblerigg, having
given his public what it wanted, knew that it would be so.
He also knew that in high places it was willed that it should not be
otherwise. And here may be recorded the bit of unwritten history
which brought that home to him.
Everybody to whom mediumistic spiritualism makes any appeal has,
in these last days, heard of Sir Roland Skoyle, the great protagonist
of that artful science, by which in equal proportion the sceptics are
confounded, and the credulous are comforted. And that being, up-to-
date, its chief apparent use in the world, it is no wonder that a certain
diplomatist turned to it when he launched his great peace-making
offensive, after the War was over. For diplomacy having to make its
account equally with those who are sceptical of its benefits, and
those who are credulous, it seemed to his alert and adaptable
intelligence that a little spiritualism behind the scenes might give him
the aid and insight that he required.
The direct incentive came from Sir Roland Skoyle himself. He had
secured a wonderful new medium, whose magnetic finger had a
specialized faculty for resting upon certain people of importance—
people who had been of importance, that is to say—in high circles of
diplomacy; and amongst them some who had been largely
instrumental in bringing the world into the condition in which it now
found itself. Among these—the war-makers and peace-makers of the
immediate past—it was natural, war being over, that the latter should
be in special request, where the problem of diplomacy was to
construct a peace satisfactory to that vast body of public opinion
which had ceased to be blood-thirsty on a large scale, but whose
instinct for retributive justice to be dealt out to the wicked by a court
of their accusers had become correspondingly active.
Sir Roland Skoyle, anxious to impress the Prime Minister with the
value of his discovery, had the happy thought of employing Mr.
Trimblerigg as his go-between. And Mr. Trimblerigg having heard a
certain name, august and revered, breathed into his ear, together
with the gist of a recent communication that had come direct, was
not averse from attending a séance in such select and exalted
company. He had an open mind and plenty of curiosity, and the idea
of sharing with the Prime Minister a secret so compromising that no
one else must know of it, strongly attracted him.
And so the sitting was arranged. And there in a darkened room the
four of them sat,—Sir Roland, the medium, Mr. Trimblerigg, and the
Prime Minister.
The medium was small and dark, and middle-aged; she had bright
eyes under a straight fringe and she spoke with a twang. There was
no doubt which side of the water she had come from. Until the
previous year, except for a few days after her birth, her home had
been the United States. The actual place of her birth was important;
it helped to account for her powers; Sir Roland having recently
discovered that the best mediums were people of mixed origin, born
on the high seas. This particular medium, having been born in the
mid-Atlantic, was Irish-American.
The theory of sea-born commerce with the world of spirits I leave to
Sir Roland Skoyle and his fellow experts. My own reason for
referring back to birth and parentage is merely that when the
medium had entered into her trance she no longer spoke that rich
broth of a language formed from two which was natural to her; but
acquired an accent and a mode of delivery entirely different; the
accent having in it a faint touch of the Teutonic, the delivery formal,
well-bred, and courtly; even when the speech was colloquial there
was about it a touch of dignity. And while she so spoke, in a manly
voice, the little woman sat with an air like one enthroned.
The Prime Minister sat jauntily, thumbs in waistcoat, and listened as
one interested and amused, but not as yet convinced. To Mr.
Trimblerigg he said chirpily, ‘If the other side got wind of this, and
used it properly, they could drive me out of office.’
‘That makes it all the more of an adventure,’ replied Mr. Trimblerigg.
‘I should be in trouble too. The Free Evangelical Church has
pronounced against—well, this sort of thing altogether: “Comes of
evil”.’
Sir Roland said, ‘In a year’s time we shall have the whole world
converted.’ But Sir Roland was always saying that. Still, table-turning
and its accompaniments had certainly received a great impetus
since the War; for which reason Mr. Trimblerigg took a friendly view
of it.
The medium’s first remark in her changed manner was sufficiently
startling and to the point:
‘Where is my crown?... Put it on.’
Sir Roland resourcefully picked up a small paper-weight, on which a
brass lion sat regardant, and deposited it precariously on the
medium’s hair.
‘Who’ve you got here? Not Eliza, I hope?’ said the Voice.
Sir Roland, in a tone of marked deference, gave the names of the
company. Two of them were graciously recognized. ‘Mr. Trimblerigg?
We have not had the pleasure of meeting him before. How do you
do, Mr. Trimblerigg?’
Mr. Trimblerigg, at a gesture from Sir Roland, bowed over the hand
the medium had graciously extended.
‘Do I kiss it?’ he inquired, doubtful of the etiquette.
Sir Roland discreetly shook his head. The ceremony was over.
There was a pause. Then: ‘Faites vos jeux, Messieurs!’ said the
Voice.
This was unexpected to all; and to one cryptic.
‘What does that mean?’ inquired Mr. Trimblerigg, in whose Free
Church training French had not been included.
The Prime Minister rose lightly to the occasion. ‘It means, or it
practically means, ‘Make your Peace, Gentlemen.’ Then, to the
unseen Presence: ‘The game is over sir,—well over. Now we have
only to collect the winnings.’
This statement of the facts was apparently not accepted: the game
was to go on. ‘Couleur gagne!’ went the Voice; and then again,
‘Faites vos jeux, Messieurs.’
‘Our present game,’ respectfully insisted the Prime Minister, ‘is to
make peace. To you, therefore, Sir, we come, as an authority—in this
matter of peace-making a very special authority. We as victors are
responsible; and we have to find a solution. The peace will not be
negotiated, it will be dictated. The question is on what terms; under
what sanctions; with what penalties? Under a Democracy such as
ours—’
‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ came the Voice, ‘Democracy does not exist.
Invite public opinion; say you agree; then ignore it, and do as you
think best. Sanctions? You will not get good work from a man while
the rope is round his neck; he wastes time and brain thinking how
soon he will die. Penalties? Yes: if you think you can get hold of the
really responsible ones.’
‘We think we can,’ purred the Prime Minister.
‘Dig up the dead, eh? That was the mediæval notion. You tar and
feather their corpses, and you hang them in chains: most indecent,
and no good to anybody. One of them is here now,—“The Man in the
Iron Mask” as we call him,—a much improved character, his world-
politics a failure, they no longer interest him; he plays on the French
horn,—badly, but it amuses him; when he strikes a false note he
calls it the Double Entente. He means that for a joke. He says they
may dig him up and hang him in chains of iron, or brass, or glass-
lustre, or daisies, or anything else if it amuses them. But you are not
proposing to hang anybody, are you?’
Mr. Trimblerigg, voicing his notion in the scriptural phraseology which
had prompted it, explained that skinning for the one, and hewing, not
hanging, for the other was the process proposed.
‘Who is your man?’ the Voice inquired sharply.
Agag was indicated.
Came a dead pause; then, very emphatically, ‘I won’t have him here!’
said the Voice.
Here? His auditors looked at each other in consternation.
What on earth, or above earth, or under earth, did ‘here’ mean?
The Prime Minister and Mr. Trimblerigg had both by now become
convinced that they were in the actual Presence that had been
promised them. But they could not admit to the world, or even to
themselves, that there was a possibility of Agag going to the place
where the Presence was supposed to be; or of the Presence being
in the place where Agag was supposed to be going. They sat like
cornered conspirators.
‘I won’t have it!’ said the Voice, almost violently. ‘We are not on
speaking terms. He and I do not get on together. Send him to Eliza:
she’ll manage him!’
This was more awful still. The Presence and ‘Eliza’, it seemed, were
not in that happy reunion which for Christian families is the expected
thing. Yet as to where Eliza had gone no reasonable doubt was
possible.
‘On ne va plus!’ cried the Voice, and the séance fell into sudden
confusion. ‘I won’t have it! I won’t have it!’ shrieked the medium
coming to, and casting off her crown at the feet of Mr. Trimblerigg.
And the words, beginning in a deep German guttural, ended in Irish-
American.
And that, if the world really wants to know, is why no real attempt
was made to hew or hang Agag, or do anything to him except on
paper in diplomatic notes which meant nothing, and at a General
Election which meant very little more—only that the Prime Minister
and Mr. Trimblerigg were saving their faces and winning temporary,
quite temporary, popularity, which eventually did them as little good
as it did harm to Agag.
The skinning of the scapegoat was not so expeditiously disposed of.
In that case the goat suffered considerably; but the skin was never
really worth the pains it took to remove from his dried and broken
bones.
When will modern civilization really understand that its predilection
for the Old Testament, once a habit, has now become a disease; and
that if it is not very careful the world will die of it.
‘Faites vos jeux, Messieurs!’ Play your game! Sometimes you may
win, and sometimes you may lose; but a day comes when you win
too big a stake for payment to be possible. Then the bank breaks,
and where are you?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Circumstances alter Cases
HAD the rescue of the native tribes of Puto-Congo from the
squeezing embrace of modern industrialism and its absentee
shareholders been a fairy-tale, they would have remained a happy
people without a history, and here at least no more would have been
heard of them. But this being the real story, things went otherwise.
It is true that Native Industries Limited not only became itself a
reformed character, but managed, by its control of the river routes
and depots, to impose repentance on the great Puto-Congo
Combine also. There, too, a rout was made of the old Board of
Directors, and the missionary zeal of Free Evangelicalism, with an
admixture of True Belief, held the balance of power. In the first year
shares went down at a run from a thirty to a ten per cent dividend,
and the mortality of indentured labour was reduced in about the
same proportion.
Of course the shareholders grumbled—not at the reduced death-rate
in itself, but at the awkward parallel which its proportional fall
suggested between toll of life and that other toll of a more
marketable kind which mainly concerned them. It was not pleasant to
feel that a reduced ten per cent profit was always going to be the
condition of a reduced ten per cent death-rate: that fifteen per cent of
the one would cause fifteen per cent of the other, and that, by
implication, a life-saving of five per cent might be effected if the
chastened shareholders would stay languidly content with a five per
cent profit. Mr. Trimblerigg himself felt this to be a reflection upon the
reformation he had effected. He had practically promised the
shareholders that decent treatment of the natives would eventually
bring larger profits. He was annoyed that it had not done so, and was
already taking steps to secure more co-ordination and efficiency in
the combined companies when the war supervened and gave to the
relations of the brother races, white and black, a different
complexion.
To put it quite plainly, under war-conditions so far-reaching as to
affect the whole world, humanitarian principles had to take second
place. For the white race, or tribe, or group of tribes in which Mr.
Trimblerigg found himself embraced by birth and moral training was
now saving the world not only for private enterprise and democracy,
but for the black and the brown and the yellow races as well, all
round the globe and back again from San Francisco to Valparaiso.
And so the enlistment of the black races in the cause of freedom—
even with a little compulsion—became an absolute necessity, a
spiritual as well as a military one, and unfortunately the blacks—and
more especially the blacks of Puto-Congo—did not see it in that light
of an evangelizing civilization as the whites did. They did not know
what freedom really was: how could they, having no politics? Their
idea of freedom was to run about naked, to live rent-free in huts of
their own building on land that belonged to nobody, to put in two
hours’ work a week instead of ten hours a day, and when an enemy
was so craven as to let himself be captured alive to plant him head-
downwards in the earth from which he ought never to have come.
That was their view of freedom, and I could name sections of
civilized communities holding very similar views though with a
difference.
Slavery, on the other hand, was having to wear anything except
beads, and nose-rings, and imitation silk-hats made of oilskin, having
to work regularly to order for a fixed wage, and to pay a hut-tax for
the upkeep of a machine-like system of government, for which they
had no wish and in which they saw no sense. And that being so, it
really did not matter whether the power which imposed these
regulations was benevolent in its intentions or merely rapacious,
whether it secured them by blood, or blockade, or by bribing the
tribal chiefs (which was the Free Evangelical method) to get the thing
done in native ways of their own. They did not like it.
Puto-Congo, having sampled it for twenty years, had definitely
decided that civilization was bad for it; and when, under the
evangelizing zeal of Mr. Trimblerigg and his co-religionists,
civilization modified its methods, they beat their drums for joy and
believing that civilization was at last letting them go, ran off into the
woods to play. And though, here and there, their chiefs hauled them
back again and made them do brief spells of work at certain seasons
of the year, they regarded it rather as a cleaning-up process,
preparatory to leave-taking, than as a carrying on of the old system
under a new form; and so they continued to play in the woods and
revert to happy savagery, and especially to that complete nudity of
both sexes which the missionaries so strongly disapproved.
It was that holiday feeling, coming after the bad time they had been
through under the old system—a holiday feeling which even the
chiefs, stimulated by bribes, could not control—which did the
mischief; for it came inopportunely just at the time when, five
thousand miles away, civilization had become imperilled by causes
with which the Puto-Congo natives had nothing whatever to do. If
civilization was so imperilled all the better for them.
It was all very unfortunate: for while the fact that civilization was at
war did not make civilization more valuable to the natives of Puto-
Congo, it did make the natives and their trade-produce very much
more valuable to civilization. Quite half-a-dozen things which they
had unwillingly produced under forced labour in the past—rubber
was one—had now become military necessities. It was no longer a
mere question of profits for shareholders—civilization itself was at
stake. Production had suddenly to be brought back to the thirty per
cent standard; and that holiday feeling, so natural but so untimely in
its incidence, was badly in the way. And so powers were given
(which are not usually given to commercial concerns—though
sometimes taken) and under government authority—a good deal at
the instigation of Mr. Trimblerigg—the Puto-Congo Combine became
exalted and enlarged into the Imperial Chartered Ray River Territory
Company, which was in fact a provisional government with powers of
enlistment civil and military, of life and death, and the making and
administration of whatever laws might be deemed necessary in an
emergency.
Endowed with these high powers, the Directors at home, with every
intention to use them circumspectly and in moderation, instructed
their commissioners accordingly. But when the commissioners got to
work they found, in the face of ‘that holiday feeling,’ that moderation
did not deliver the goods. And since the goods had to be delivered,
lest the world should be lost to democracy, they took advantage of
the censorship which had been established against the promulgation
of news unfavourable to the moral character of their own side, and
took the necessary and effective means to deliver them. And when
the profits once more began to rise, these did not go to the
shareholders but to the Government as a form of war-tribute, and
that, of course, made it morally all right—for the ten per cent
shareholders at any rate—since they knew nothing about it.
And thus, for three or four years, Puto-Congo natives did their bit,
losing their own lives at an ever-increasing death-rate, and saving
democracy which they did not understand, for that other side of the
world which they did not know. They got no war-medals for it and no
promotion; nor were any reports of those particular casualties printed
in the papers. Enough that the holiday feeling went off, and the
goods were delivered. Over the rest, war-conditions and war-
legislation drew a veil, and nothing was said.
And that is why, while war went on, Mr. Trimblerigg and the rest of
the world did not hear of it; or if they heard anything, did not believe
what they heard; for that too is one of the conditions that war
imposes. Truth, then, becomes more relative than ever; which is one
of the reasons why Mr. Trimblerigg was then in his element. But
when the war was sufficiently over for intercommunication to re-
establish itself, and when the skinning of the scapegoat had become
a stale game, and when the hewing of Agag had emphatically not
come off, then Mr. Trimblerigg, and others, began to hear of it. It was
the others that mattered. Mr. Trimblerigg—his war-mind still upon
him, and still suffering from his severe attack of Old Testament—did
not believe it; but the others did, and the others were mainly the
most active and humanitarian section of the Free Evangelicals.
Having already expressed their disapproval of skinning the
scapegoat and hewing Agag, even to the extent of pronouncing
against it at their first annual conference after the war, they now
fastened on the recrudescence of ugly rumours from Puto-Congo
and the adjacent territories, and began to hold Mr. Trimblerigg
responsible.
They had at least this much reason upon their side, that Mr.
Trimblerigg was still chairman of the Directors of Native Industries
Limited, and, by right of office, sat upon the administrative council of
the Chartered Company. And when, as the leakage of news became
larger, it seemed that everything he had formerly denounced as an
organized atrocity was being, or had but recently been done on a
much larger scale by his own commissioners, the cry became
uncomfortably loud, and the war-mind, which can manipulate facts to
suit its case while they are suppressed by law, began to find itself in
difficulties.
Mr. Trimblerigg, faced by certified facts which he continued to deny
or question, began jumping from the New to the Old Testament and
back again with an agility which confused his traducers but did not
convince them; and the allegiance of the Free Evangelicals became
sharply divided. The reunion of the Free Churches for which Mr.
Trimblerigg had so long been working, already adversely affected by
the divergencies of the war, was now strained to breaking.
On the top of this came the news that the natives of Puto-Congo had
risen in revolt and had begun massacring the missionaries, and Free
Evangelical opinion became more sharply divided than ever—
whether to withdraw the missions and cease to have any further
connection with the Chartered Company, or to send out
reinforcements, less spiritual and more military, adopt the policy of
the firm hand, and restore not liberty but order.
Mr. Trimblerigg then announced that he would do both. To the
Administrative Council he adumbrated a scheme for the gradual
development of the Chartered Company, with its dictatorial powers,
into the Puto-Congo Free State Limited, with a supervised self-
government of its own, mainly native but owing allegiance to the
Company on which its commercial prosperity and development
would still have to depend.
Matters were at a crisis, and were rapidly getting worse. Mr.
Trimblerigg had made too great a reputation over Puto-Congo affairs

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