Blog # 4

BLOG #4

　

As I was thinking about the topic for the paper, I realized I had no problem coming up with any ideas,in fact I came up with too many so I feel that my idea for the topic may perhaps be a bit ambigous since I wanted to focus on the overall element or key that seperates successful products from others (I expect to get some feedback that might narrow my topic). In other words, the answer to why they're successful and maybe how we might be able to come across these customer insights.

The way I plan to go about this is (and I'm open to any recommendations) by looking at few successful products or services and going into detail each of their stories-how marketers and researchers approached the target market, delivered the product, etc.

I feel I would be able to write a lot with this approach also because there are so many rich stories and examples out there of marketers stumbling into customer insights that (as mentioned in class) were obvious after their discovery but not so much in the beginning. I plan to use resources and concepts from other classes (marketing 460 information analysis and Brand Management) also to help me with the process.

I find this broad topic of mine interesting because I feel that I would be able to get a good picture of how to get to the root and heart of how successful products meet the needs of consumers (customer insights). Not just feature-wise but even emotionally-wise, as we have learned so far from class, consumers (or rather people) are very emotional and they can identify with a brand or product and be loyal (as how I experienced and mentioned in my last post about how I grew loyal to jiffy lube after experiencing great customer service). The way I see it, brands came out of a customer insight in itself. Customers a lot of times don't have time or expertise to decide among all the products and brands (problem), so they choose products or brands they trust among the many as a way to decide easier and save time (brands =solution?)

The connection of the successful products to customer insights is, in a sense the bridge? By going into detail and seeing how exactly marketers approached the customer problems, I can basically learn part of the process and requirements for getting to those customer insights (what it takes). As already mentioned it can be as simple as satisfying a single need under certain contextes but it can more complex as going beyond needs and satisfying values: attributes > benefits > values. I am interested in seeing an example of each.

One article I would like to use as example (can be reached at http://www.mail-archive.com/medianews@twiar.org/msg04090.html) is the same one that I mentioned in an earlier post. It all started when the phone company Vodafone at first had no luck selling their smartphones to the older market due to the phone being too complicated with fancy software and applications. But after focusing on and listening to their customers, they've learned that they just wanted a simple device that can work. Hence the "Vodafone Simply" was born ,



a simple phone that was tailored for older people (Pringle, p.1). Quantitative data was gathered through a survey conducted to understand the older people (to gain the insight).