DRM - a new paradigm

Laying the foundation to Developmental Relationship Marketing

Though a relatively new concept, DRM is fast making its foray into corporate circles. Marketers ought to understand that DRM is centred on the processing of information (about a product and its message through advertising). Marketers should also identify with the basic premise of Developmental Relationship Marketing, before developing a communications message for consumers.

The altar of DRM is constructed on the following five premises:

Origin of needs: An individual’s needs, motivations, and strategies for satisfaction are predisposed and pre-determined depending upon his level of personal development. The KUMe values to which all behaviour is traceable are not acquired but are innate, and constitute the basic building blocks of behaviour.

Origin of motivations: Every individual behaves in a particular fashion that is a result of both acquired and innate needs emerging from KUMe values. There are two forces, which influence an individual in his entire life. The first force (objective force) dominates the human in the first part of his life, when he is young. (e.g. the forces of dependence, materialism, egocentricism, adventurous etc). The second force (subjective force) dominates the second half of his life and is characterised by autonomy, experiential, altruism, involvement etc.

Domains of personal development: An individual’s personality is the sum of many factors that influence him throughout (infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age) his life-stages. The factors can be his environment, his family, friends, health, wellbeing, etc. There are two domains.

Physical domain: In simplistic terms, it involves the development of the physical body. Primary development is completed by adolescence, and secondary development that continues throughout life.
Psychological domain: It is the growth of both the conscious and unconscious mind. Mental growth is achieved during the life-span in the following way:

a) Subjective style: It reflects the inorganic self, which encompasses the conscious and unconscious mind. This is usually experienced in childhood when children experience the world as an extension of self.

b) Objective style: Contrary to subjective - after the experience of the cognitive style during childhood and adolescence – people see reality in a more practical way. For instance, individuality takes precedence over group, career, life, and possessions. Reality is seen in a fragmented form and not in a holistic way. Reality for this segment is unambiguous and truth, absolute.

c) Integrated style: For people in their middle age or older, this reflects an amalgamation of subjective and objective. Reality is seen in nuances, shades of grey and not absolute. It is seen more in terms of relationships.

Keeping information flow to levels that the conscious mind can manage

A person receives thousands of messages everyday. It becomes a herculean task for the brain to process each information. So it processes only that information, which is necessary for survival and rejects other information.

Seasons of life (stages of personality development). There are four major stages of personal development.

Season Development focus Years Survival focus

Spring Initial development 0 - 22 years Play (learning)

Summer Vocational development 18 + - 40+ Work (becoming somebody)

Fall Shift to inner development 38 + - 60+ Work-Play (search for meaning)

Winter Integration of life experiences 58 + - ? Reconciliation (making sense of life)

The first two seasons of life or stages are dominated by social (psycho-social) development needs; the last two are dominated by inner (psycho-spiritual) development needs

The DRM technique is a good guide for research and marketing. However, it should be kept in mind that these principles merely provide an understanding of people’s behaviour in their developmental stages, and are not absolute; there is no uniformity among people. Since people work according to their free will ,it is not practical to typecast them into a particular framework and define their characteristics rigidly.

Related reading:
1. DRM; Institute of Developmental Relationship Marketing; 2000
2.“Serving the Ageless Market”; Wolfe, David; 2000