I often refrain from using the word, ‘consumer’, and there’s a clear reason why. As businesses are set up often with multiple links in the supply chain, the term ‘consumer’ was coined to distinguish between business customers (wholesalers) and customers who are the end-users of a product. However, ‘end-customer’ can just as easily be used to make this distinction.

‘Consumer’ assumes that people are dumb. It assumes humans are passive, predictable and basic. A product or service is provided, and people supposedly just consume it. But are we really that passive and simple?

Modern understanding of marketing suggests that value is often co-created. Individuals can customise or alter a product to suit their needs. They use a product, they do not consume it. For instance, do children consume lego, or do they use the product to create something that satisfies their individual needs? Is a Rolex watch “consumed” as if it were to provide only a functional benefit, or is the watch purchased to provide a sense of identity to its owner? We do not simply sit there with our mouths opened passively waiting to consume some product or marketing drivel.

If organisations fail to recognise the intelligence of their customers to use, mould and re-create their products, they will lose these customers to other businesses that make this acknowledgement. Make the switch. Scrap ‘consumer’.