What will bicycling company, Shimano (one of Lance Armstrong's main sponsors) do to retain customers once Armstrong retires? Should Coca-Cola change their recipe because 200,000 blind taste testers preferred a new taste instead of the classic flavor?
Those were questions marketers from these companies asked themselves. Shimano and CocaCola (respectively) found out what their consumers wanted in the products being offered to them, using fundamental design ideas to find these insights... and one of these companies made a serious mistake.
I believe it is essential for anyone trying to sell anything to ask themselves how their product would be uniquely beneficial to the consumer and would be different than anything else there is on the market. Therefore, when deciding whether or not to inject the design philosophy into marketing, you've got to realize how much success design in marketing has already brought. Then, it's pretty much a no-brainer.
IDEO Consulting Firm took over the Shimano problem and helped them develop a sleek new design for a bike. Less knobs, buttons, levers, and other things to have to figure out. Along with a bike design, IDEO created an in-store setup that would be more inviting to novice bike users. As a result, IDEO won seven International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) in 2008.1
After a great guest lecture on design by Jeff Mulhausen, from Upstream, our Consumer Insights class learned some basic things to take into consideration that coincide well with marketing including a design philosophy. The fundamental rubric and thought processes from the design philosphy makes marketers whittle down their ideas and products to their very core, even before they're created. Here are a few that resonated with me:
- Design for the majority. Currently businesses are making products only for the top 10% of the world's population. There is definitely so much more room to expand.
- Design to empower. Provide tools for people to better their lives! Sure, you can try to push silly products like useless, ridiculous, tiny pieces of cloth to cover women's cleavage: http://www.camisecret.com. (I take this back. Someone, somewhere will buy this. And for this, I sigh.)
- Have a universal design. Do not make your product exclusive. Try to make it accessible to any age, gender, etc.
- Design for simplicity. This is exactly where Shimano excelled in their new bike design. They took the clutter and complexity out of bikes and made them for people with little bike knowledge.
This all sounds like common sense, right? Set up a focus group, send out surveys, and you can make the perfect product to cater to your customer.
But, even sometimes, common sense fails. In the Spring of 1985, Coca-Cola changed its 99 year old recipe because the new taste was preferred to the classic "Coke" in some blind taste-tests.
According to The Coca-Cola company's website:
"The fabled secret formula for Coca-Cola was changed, adopting a formula
preferred in taste tests of nearly 200,000 consumers. What these tests didn't
show, of course, was the bond consumers felt with their Coca-Cola -- something
they didn't want anyone, including The Coca-Cola Company, tampering with." 2
Where did Coca-Cola fail? Unfortunately, Coca-Cola had blinders on. They didn't realize how big Coca-Cola was, not as a soft drink, but as a symbol of America. This was another point made by Mr. Mulhausen. You've got to see if your product works in the context it is in and not just make a product just to make a product. I'm sure Coca-Cola had the right intentions, obviously the numbers told them what they should do, but they didn't realize the product would be rejected by Americans because their favorite childhood soda had been altered.
Obviously, I think including design philosophies in marketing is a great idea. It makes you think outside of the box as well as whittles down your ideas and products so that marketers can understand basic human needs and wants.
Companies must simply be careful to ask the right questions.
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