Friendship as a Commodity

At a stage in life when I have more than two times the number of friends I had just 2 years back. This thought hit my mind on a lazy day when I was just trying to recollect as it is holiday time now, whom all am I supposed to call and say a Hi, whom all am I supposed to meet and know what's up in their life and whom all I am in good contact with now should I give some time and space for a while. During this duration of recollecting names and times we spent, I got this concept of marketing hit on to the other side of my brain.

According to what I have learnt in Marketing, every product has 5 levels in which it can be placed and there are various factors which determine which level the product belongs to (Core benefit level, Generic Level, Expected Level, Augmented Level and Potential Level). Don’t worry I am not going to talk about the concept much, just wanted to lay a platform for the thought that hit my mind.

So to further delve with this thought I just tried to place a few friends in this product level framework and I was clearly able to see how a friend moved from the Core Benefit level to the augmented Level and now is back at the Generic Level. To explain this better I’ll try and share an illustration – Say friend X and I studied together in School and were just classmates for a lot of years where we being friends was at the Core Benefit Level i.e. every other classmate was a friend by default whether I spoke to him or not, so by default every class mate becomes a friend in the system.

Then came times when we shared (X & I) certain things in common, say we used to reach school at the same time or we used to sit adjacent to each other and then we started saying each other hi when we met in the mornings and used to wish each other goodbye when we used to leave for home in the evening. Here we reached the Generic Level where we went beyond the Core Benefit level and we were no more commodities like friends, we had something more than just commodity like treatment in our friendship.

Say after a few weeks since we sat together we started talking each other, sharing each others thoughts and so on, sat together on the lunch table and so on, here we reached the Expected Level where one meets his friends everyday talks to him, tells him what happened last evening and discusses other issues of life but with a pause at times. And then slowly as we remained at the Expected level for a while we reached the final year of school and then we felt we have had great times and so we started sharing more with each other, we went out together, met on weekends, called up each other to know what's up, have I studied or not, cleared doubts, and so on and so forth. This was a stage when there would not be a day when we did not speak or meet up more than once, we used to share secrets both personal and family level. And we were really best friends as one likes to call and this was the time when we reached the augmented level from the expected level.

Then there was this day when school got over, both got into different colleges (we tried a lot to get into the same college, but fate dint allow) and then the really nice friendship existed but the level of interaction slowly started fading away as both got busy into our own college lives and other things. So we started meeting only on weekends or may be call up on weekends if we weren’t able to meet and here we were back at the expected level from the augmented level. And it went on for a while and then the frequency decreased from a week to a month for us to meet or talk. I had my own set of new friends and other things going on in life and same was the case with him.

We still shared a good level of understanding, but then our friendship surely started going to the generic level from the expected level as the frequency decreased even more from a month to several months or may be just certain occasions when we used to meet/ talk. So currently we are at the Generic Level and we cannot go to the Core Benefit level until we actually stop thinking about each other even once in a while. The day when it takes a moment for me to think of this friend, that day he will fall into the Core Benefit level and would be known as “was a friend” types and our friendship will become a commodity as it does with lot many friends whom I even don’t wish on occasions but still they are my friends.

So getting back to my thought I just realized I have so many friends whom I share a really nice rapport with but most of them I am not in touch with at least not frequently. So I was somehow able to clearly see a lot of them in different levels both the new ones and the oldest ones. Few of those might be subjective but to some extent I could see for myself that how certain people sailed from the Core Benefit level to the augmented Level very fast while others were in and around the expected level and how these levels changed in the course of time.

Then I tried to figure out what are the main aspects which determine the increase or decrease of level of my friendship with someone. And it stood out quite clearly that TIME and EFFORT were the key aspects which determined where one stood. The time and effort could be from the other person’s side or from my side but it surely did matter (time and effort can be expended in today’s context in various ways such as calls, chats both on mobile and internet, meeting each other and a few other ways). There are certain people whom I like to spend time with and also extend some effort to keep the rapport on in different ways because I like to be friends with them and at a higher level. There are also people who try to spend some time and effort on me which I may acknowledge or ignore depending on which level I like to have them in. So at the end of the day it depends on both me and the other person that which level do we actually take our friendship to and rest is just the matter of time as the level may rise and fall in the passage of time.

There are also friends who have risen to the augmented level, then fell to the Generic Level and are now back at the Augmented level so this interplay of levels will go on in life but what matters is how important is the relationship to the two of us and how much understanding do we have irrespective of what level of friendship we have in terms of the product level.

So a Big HI to all my friends irrespective of which level you are in, and now you can start wondering which level do u actually think we are in???

Cheers

Yo!!

P.S – I haven’t dealt with the potential level at all because that’s a subjective area, something which is potential may be augmented to someone else and most importantly potential level is always open as once u reach the potential level you indirectly fall to the augmented level as something else becomes potential by then. So generally speaking I feel augmented level is the peak which I could analyze things in as potential level is at any point empty or at least gets empty very soon.

Also this framework can be applied to any relationship, though I just tried it on friendship.