Experience with successful companies is what people look for in advisors, consultants and agencies.
My shop’s experience has revealed what successful organizations all have in common: an extraordinary focus on truly understanding the point of view of their customers -- especially in the way those customers think about, and compare, products.
What I see over and over again is that the most successful marketers are the ones who look at their products, and all products, the way their customers and prospects do. We’ve been fortunate to work with some of them.
Cost Plus World Market was obsessed by where their ideal consumers and prospective consumers live and actually shop. They saw location and layout of the stores through the eyes of their consumers, not through the lens of their stores.
Today, their customers are spending more time in each World Market store. World Market sees the world its customers see.
No brand understands the need for product innovation more than Clorox. Making life healthier, easier and better for consumers is a Clorox obsession. It’s a company that sees the world its customers see.
Disney confronted changes in the entertainment market head-on. When it recognized what families wanted, it acquired Pixar. What emerged was a fresh new energy for Disney operations and a stronger relationship with consumers. Disney saw the world that the audience saw.When it started, Yahoo worked with us to build a brand around an audience. Yahoo’s initial success – and its extraordinary efforts to listen, observe and test and re-test all things from a user’s point of view – was no coincidence. It was fundamental to the rapid rise of the brand (remember?). Yahoo saw the world its users saw.
Sometimes, the science of business requires real science. D-Wave Systems, the quantum computer company, applies quantum physics to help digital computers solve commercial problems. To utilize science this way, D-Wave must continue to see the world its customers and partners see.
Full disclosure: We’ve seen our share of failures. Products designed and marketed in ways that did not satisfy or engage prospective customers. While they usually believed otherwise, designers and marketers of these products saw the world through the lens of their company and their products, not the eyes of their customers.
They saw a world their customers didn’t live in.
Comment Preview