Customer Empathy

Talk to Customers, It Worked for Nike

We didn't do any traditional research in the way of pre-testing advertising or even product pre-testing at Nike. A lot of lab work but nothing in front of focus groups, at least in the seven years I was there. We did -in lieu of that - get very close to consumers. We didn't jump in front of them in focus groups or other qualitative environments and say, "What do you think of this line?" or "What do you think of this commercial?" We would spend hours just getting to understand the world they live in, and then very slowly and methodically move it to a discussion about sports and fitness, then to a discussion about footwear and apparel, then to brands, and then ultimately to Nike.

Too often a lot of companies are saying, "Let's test the new package design," and just jump in front of consumers and say, "What do you think of this one, versus that one, versus that one?" when what they probably should be doing is having a very deep and insightful discussion about how they feel about the world they live in and where the brand fits or doesn't fit. -- Scott Bedbury, Author of A New Brand World (worked on Nike and Starbucks brands) in interview with Tom Peters

Capturing Emergent Needs

Another pithy comment in the yahoogroups email list for The Support Economy (submitted by Elmer Rich, Feb 26):

If someone can articulate a need then it's too late to capture a real advantage. It's only in serving the emergent and biologically driven needs that a firm can capture a unique differentiation.

Actually, the differentiation is coming in the processes by which those needs are discovered and
solutions created and delivered.

None of us can wait until the market asks, or our competitors are doing it, any more.