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June 10, 2006

What Customers Want

Several years ago I came across one of the most useful and practical articles on market research I have ever read -- “How To Turn Customer Input into Innovation” by Anthony Ulwick.

Published in the January 2002 Harvard Business Review, the article briefly outlined a methodology and set of tools for gathering customer input in a way that actually drives product innovation. In addition, the article illustrated how Cordis -- a medical device manufacturer specializing in products for interventional vascular medicine -- used Ulwick’s approach to innovate the heart stent and gain market leadership in the angioplasty balloon market. As a result, Cordis’ stock went from $20 to $109 per share when it was acquired by Johnson and Johnson.

Now, Ulwick has updated his tools and provided a more comprehensive look at his methodology in his recently released book, What Customers Want (McGraw Hill). This book should be required readying for anyone involved in product development and marketing. Partly because it offers a comprehensive, step-by-step approach for converting innovation from a random hit-or-miss process into a more methodical approach, but also because it greatly reduces the risk of new product failure and substantially increases the odds of success.

In a world where some 80 to 90 percent of new products fail, the ROI for using Ulwick’s methods is substantial.

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Posted by Rod Whitson at 3:22 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

June 5, 2006

Ring Those Wedding Bells: Building a Strong Brand Marriage

If brands are about relationships, why not build a strong brand marriage?

I’m not suggesting you actually walk down the aisle with your customers. But maybe the time has come to look at brand relationships in a different way?

We all know that the best brands make strong emotional connections with their customers. Recent research suggests, however, that the best brands don’t stop there. Instead, they leverage those emotional connections to such an extent that their customers feel “married” to the brand.

In general, customers come to strong emotional connections with a brand in two ways. First, they personify the product (or the company) so that they have a relationship with it just like they would with a real person. They sometimes experience a full range of emotions when they interact with the brand, and occasionally even talk about the brand like they would a good friend. Apple Mac users fall into this group.

Second, customers can become part of a group that shares a common bond around the brand. Harley Davidson and BMW motorcycle customers fall into this group, as do the user groups of many software companies.

For most technologists and scientists, however, this emotional model of branding is just too warm and fuzzy, especially with products that mostly satisfy functional needs. Most technology companies find it very difficult to methodically and systematically build emotional engagements. They also find it challenging, if not impossible, to measure and monitor these emotional connections when they do occur.

As a result, when trying to build a strong brand marriage, many technology companies are left standing at the altar.

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Posted by Rod Whitson at 12:29 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)