The End of the Road

So this is it. My last entry for Customer Insights. I'll try to make it a good one.

The whole concept of the customer experience was a new idea to me. I had had some, well a lot of experience actually, working with instrumentation products that were designed to be operated by an end-user. However all of our requirements were based on the functional usability of the machine and that was it. From the first day when Professor Walls described the customer insights course in terms of the "Starbucks Experience" it really opened my eyes to intangibles such as the emotional connection or relationship the customer can have with their product and some of the more subtle motivations behind why customers buy a product. In other words, the factors that go beyond price, quality, and performance; typical parameters that have been traditionally used to define the merits of a product from a seller's standpoint. So from this point on I was really sold on this idea and as the course progressed I realized that this is really a new, cutting-edge area of marketing and one that all businesses would be wise to consider. Companies such as Starbucks, Apple, and Ritz-Carlton, have been fast movers in adopting this marketing ideal, and this is certainly a new perspective that I will take to the company (Life Technologies) I will be interning at this summer. The group project re-enforced the idea that there are more factors at play than the pure functionality of a product. In our project, Lisa (trendy Mom) was constantly concerned about clutter, mess, storage, and time when in the kitchen, which was somewhat divergent from our original idealistic picture of her in this environment. Had we not have conducted our ethnographic and traditional research, we would not have truly understood her typical experience in the kitchen and what we could do to improve it. In the end I believe our "special skillet" is a product that we could never, ever, have come up with had we not used the customer experience concepts.

"The Ugly Baby"

The other key takeaway from the course that I know will be useful in my future career endeavors was the prototyping process. The rapid prototyping was particularly insightful. It was created based on the feedback that we received from our persona subjects, but what really blew me away was how much criticism our subjects had of the design! Considering we designed it from their ideas and thoughts I found this really paradoxical at first, but what I realized was that there must of been information that was not, and maybe could not have been captured in the original data collection which only the rapid prototype could have brought out (as embarrassing as showing the prototype was). I do now see the value in the prototyping process, as it gave our group the ability to exercise our creative genius incrementally and within the context of the customer's needs. As a matter of fact, I believe that if we took our second prototype to the persona subjects again, they would again have feedback and questions, though probably not quite as many as the design has matured based on their requirements. If I had another opportunity to take this course, I would choose some different ethnographic techniques (for fun) as well as a different persona. I actually really wanted to choose children or tweens as the group persona, as I think a lot of really cool off-the-wall ideas would come out from this segment. Oh well!!

The third question is difficult for me to answer because I really did feel all aspects of the group project were useful and represented a learning experience. Hmmmm......, perhaps the options of what environment the product could be designed for could be opened up to the team's or individuals' interests? I don't know. I don't really feel strongly either way about this. Sorry, I don't have too much to say on this subject. I thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of the project and the process we followed made perfect sense to me.

Working with the group on this project was a good experience overall. I was fortunate enough to work with a great team that was reliable and had their materials prepared by the deadline. I think the group aspect was of particular value in creating the rapid prototype simply because there are so many possibilities at first. Having the ability to bounce different ideas of different team members is invalueable. As I mentioned in my group presentation I did confirm through this course that I am an egocentric person! The friendly argument that ensued between me and my persona based on the rapid prototype was an eye-opener. To re-iterate, never, ever have one of the designers performing follow-up interviews! Otherwise the data may be biased by that person! I believe the group presentations was a good experience, particularly for the non-MBA students. From an audience perspective it did appear to me that there was a difference in quality between an MBA speaking versus a non-MBA. Last but not least I think Professor Walls did a good job with this course. My major sticking point was mediation of the classroom in terms of side-conversations, laptops being up during class, people on smartphones, and name tags not displayed. Totally disrespectful in my opinion. It disgusted me when I saw the usual classmates with their token comments for participation points get right on their smartphones immediately after voicing themselves. Brutal. Anyway, not to be overly negative - that's just one criticism. My experience in this course was great, and I'm definitely going to carry this knowledge forward into my future career!

Shoot first. Ask questions later.

Today I reviewed the authors' commentary on groundswell. Yes, groundswell. Are they making up their own words for this social media phenomenon? If so, can they not pick a more intuitive term to describe this? Wow, I'm in a negative mindset today! Right...calibrate... let's move on!!

A few topics really struck me as I read the chapters. First and foremost, there is an immense amount of potential to solicit product and process feedback from SNS users, and in my opinion, particularly from forums and review sites such as IMDB (Internet Movie Database) and CNET, which gives users a chance to weigh in on the product offering. To me this represents a huge paradigm shift away from having a few central "experts" that have historically had an extraordinary effect on the success or failure of a product. Some examples that come to mind immediately are movie critics (Siskel & Ebert / Roeper & Ebert) and food critics (Ruth Reichl / R.W. Apple Jr.). Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they still impact a large number of people, but now there are social media mediums that people can utilize to provide their opinion and see a large subset of feedback as opposed to one or two datapoints. Companies ought to be aware of this shift and adapt to it. So the question becomes, what can they do?

If I were in a marketing position in a company that sold, say, a technology product. I would immediately educate myself on the various forum and review-style sites that exist, and if there weren't any I would request an initiative for my company to create one and manage it. The question of whether my company would put it's name on it is an interesting one. I suppose the answer would hinge on how the particular demographic of users feels about corporate logos on forums - is it anti-corporation, indifferent, or are some other emotions expressed?

In any case, an idea that came to me was to create loaded statements on the sites. That is, extreme statements that either greatly over-exaggerate or significantly undermine a product or service. The intent would be to illicit response and to determine exactly where a product stands - is the assertion way off, or not too far from the truth? I believe this would be a novel approach for companies to gain a better understanding of their products in the SNS segment that they have identified. Some major hang-ups that customers have with their products will almost certainly come to light.

At this point, the companies could attempt to get in touch with the users that have been critical of the product or service to better understand what segment they represent as well as how to improve their experience. To take matters a step further, perhaps it may be appropriate to create a persona for these users if they do indeed represent a common type of user.

The other idea I had was to extend the SNS into the physical store. For example, why not have "like / dislike" buttons by select new products at stores like Wal-Mart or Target to tally customer's binary opinions on a product. The opinions feedback can then be ported over to a forum for that product, to help understand why users liked it or why they disliked it, and again, take measures to improve these customers' experiences. This is a win-win for both the retailer and the manufacturer. Speaking of Wal-Mart, check this website out, funny stuff.

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

I am one of those people that refuse to shop at Wal-Mart. I honestly don't. This is the reason.

So I touched on a couple of ideas of some applications that companies can use to exploit SNS. I feel that there is potential to have successful marketing efforts through SNS, but at the same time there is an equally likely or perhaps even greater possibility that companies' products, services, and actions, will be scrutinized to an extent never they've never experienced previously. Simply put, it is unlikely going forward that large companies will be able to release crap without a considerable number of people knowing.

Power to the people.

WAR IS PEACE - FREEDOM IS SLAVERY - IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

The NY Times article on Wal-Mart's hidden customer data mine came as a big surprise to me. I knew that large retailers did collect some data on their customers' buying habits, but 460 terabytes of data? C'mon man!

To Wal-Mart's credit though, they are absolutely correct in their perspective that the data represents very powerful information and I believe they have exploited this data to gain a competitive advantage over their competition. Wal-Mart's most significant core competency is supply chain managment and as such, they realize that matching supply with demand is a critical challenge they can use this data to overcome. Imagine knowing the precise amount of inventory that will consumed in a month... in a week... in a day... in an hour. Wal-Mart recognizes that given enough statistics (gender, age, race, geography, looming natural disasters) they can reasonably accurately predict the demand for certain goods. For the customer this represents a positive experience. Most people are well aware of how frustrating it can be when they go to the store and an item they really want or need is sold out. Wal-Mart is trying to create a situation in which this will never, ever happen. The data should also lead to reasonable pricing and the "right" merchandise being available. That is, if the demand for a product is low, the data will probably support either lowering the price of the product or replacing it outright. So this is the positive experience in a nutshell: the item I want, at a reasonable price, on the shelf when I want it.

Another benefit that this data gives Wal-Mart is an even greater amount of power over their suppliers. According to the article Wal-Mart may be moving to a system in which suppliers own merchandise until it's sold to the end-user. With the data Wal-Mart has, they should be able to statistically ensure suppliers that their merchandise will be sold and that the supplier will not be left with an excess amount of inventory on their books. Given Wal-Mart's sheer size and this guarantee, I think suppliers will have no choice but to conform to the mandate. This is clearly not a financial benefit to the suppliers, as it could increase their working capital, but many companies depend on Wal-Mart to remain intact and profitable, so they will have no choice but to continue to do business with this merchandising monster.

There certainly are some potential privacy issues that this data collection raises, and I'm certainly not in a position in which I trust Wal-Mart. In fact, I don't trust big businesses in general, because as a business student I realize that company's mandates are to be accountable to its shareholders. Simply stated, companies will attempt to create value by any means necessary. The problem is that if this means finding a loophole in the law in which they can sell off data (a practice Wal-Mart used to partake in) to make an efficient buck, then the management will not think twice about it. I guess I see both sides of the coin. On one hand it is reasonable for Wal-Mart to collect data in an effort to understand its customers' purchasing habits. Isn't this what every retailer should do? On the other hand the data could be used for sinister motives a la 1984 (did you recognize the reference from the title of this blog entry?). Overall I'll admit that this issue does not bother me too much because I think the laws in North America are too restrictive to allow extreme misuse of this data towards the collective population. I'm confident that some lobby group will scream "bloody murder". After all, isn't democracy all about having your nation run by special interest and minority groups? Okay... sorry I'm getting carried away. Politically charged Norm "OFF".

One important segment of data I believe Wal-Mart is missing lies with the end-user. Wal-Mart tracks where merchandise is bought, but how satisfied is the customer with their physical purchase, not to mention the experience they had in parking their car, interacting with the greeter, comandeering their cart or basket, finding what they were looking for, waiting (or not) in line, interacting with the cashier, returning their cart or basket, finding their car, then finally leaving the lot. These are very crucial pieces of information that (as far as I know), Big Brother... I mean, Wal-Mart is not capturing. I feel Wal-Mart could be an even more powerful entity if they had value propositions beyond just EDLP. So anyone want to answer an e-mail survey? $10 off your next purchase at Wal-mart! Anyone??

Let's end with a quote from a song I've been listening to while I've been writing this blog... relevant perhaps? So long!

"Relapse, fall backwards and slide, are you suggesting that I repress, repress and disguise?"

-The Honorary Title

To use, or not use a celebrity: that is the question.

Advertising is a subject that most of us can connect with. Individually we are bombarded with thousands of advertisements a day. Yep. Oodles and oodles of them. But how much real value is actually created by companies that use us as recipients of their advertising campaignns? A legitimate question I think, albeit a very broad one.



One aspect of advertising that has always intrigued me is the use of celebrities in commerical media. As an avid sports fan, companies such as Nike, Addidas, Reebok, and Gatorade have used, and continue to use celebrities to endorse their products. My personal speculation is that in general these companies do a good job of utilizing their celebrity atheletes by limiting them to doing what they do best - training for, and playing the sport that they are most proficient at. There was a Nike commercial that came out a couple of years ago that showed celebrities from many different sports training, with no identification of the celebrities and no speaking roles for the celebrities with the exception of an short statement at the beginning of the commercial that captured one of the main themes of the commercial. Check the link below! Fascinating.











http://www.youtube.com/watch#v=eO1jbmIiYoE&feature=related




As I do have a "dream" career of one day working in the sports industry in some type of marketing role, writing a research paper for my customer insights class may be a very small step in the direction of one day realizing this goal. After all, the more I know about marketing, and one type of advertising avenue that sports companies pursue, the stronger my knowledge base will be. By the way, if you're wondering about the image to the left... that's a metaphor for me taking on the world to achieve my dream career. I haven't figure out yet whether I'm the soccer ball or the building.

Moving on from the example of the sports specific use of celebrities in advertising, I have seen other commercials use celebrities in alternative ways, like showing direct usage of the product by the celebrity and/or having the celebrity endorse the product. A memorable commercial for me that illustrated just this was Jessica Simpson (singer) using a Proactiv acne treatment solution and endorsing the product throughout the commercial. No, I do not find this commercial memorable because I am a female with an acne problem. Take a look at the video link - I'm sure you can do the math.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#v=wmYZQmX2Jz8&feature=related


So I think I'd like to broaden the scope of my research paper to examine how much real value do commercials that utitlize celebrites generate, and more importantly, whether should firms ultimately bother using celebrities. Some major questions I have are the following:

• What is the average economic return generated by a celebrity vs. non-celebrity commercial?
• How do firms make a decision on whether to use a celebrity or not in their advertising?
• How do firms determine which celebrity to use to endorse its product?
• What type of experience do these commercials create for the customer?
• What type of persona or audience do these commercials target?

I think the latter two questions are the primary questions I would like my paper to be able to address. By better understanding more about the economic justification for using celebrities in advertising as well understanding some of the factors for using celebrities that may not be immediately obvious from a financial analysis will hopefully help arrange the framework to really understand the complete customer experience that these commercials are creating.

There is an interesting article from the Journal of Marketing (Vol. 59, July 1995, pp. 56-62) entitled "The Economic Worth of Celebrity Endorsers: An Event Study Analysis" that attempts to address at least the question of whether celebrities do indeed help generate profitibility through product endorsements. The conclusion reached is that there is a positive correlation between celebrity endorsement contracts and stock price, which suggests that celebrity endorsements are in fact a worthwhile advertising vehicle.


I see this paper as dominantly a reasearch-based product, but I'd like to be able to use this information to draw my own conclusions on what this customer experience is, whether celebrities are creating the right types of experiences, and back to the original question, is their use justified within the existing context of these advertisements? I woud also like to make some recommendations on what the marketing companies could do to improve on or expand the scope of the experience.

Arivaderchi party people.

The customer is always wrong???

So I've been challenged to blog on a few articles that I read which are basically about how, and well, how not, to listen to the voice of the customer.

Hey! Wake up brain! You're still in weekend mode!

The first article I read was a narrative about the singer Kenna, and his story of attempting to "make it big" in the music industry. The chapter illustrates a deeper meaning behind how different consumers perceive the value or quality of a new product. All customers are not created equal. Revelation #3 of the day. It's been a slow day! In all seriousness though, this was a real eye-opener for me as I assumed that although the consumers did have varying preferences and interests they were all roughly on the same level. The story of the taste testers (Heylmun & Ceville) who were so experienced that they could distinguish very subtle differences in tastes and textures which the layperson could not, really hammered this home for me. My pre-conceived notions were totally refuted. Up in flames.

Ouch, my ego hurts. Isn't the first time.... won't be the last.

The other interesting point, although not totally unbeknownst to me was that context matters when evaluating the voice of the customer. For example, how is the product used? The Coke vs. Pepsi taste test illustrated how Coke overlooked this question. Incidentally, I actually liked New Coke better than the original formula and was disappointed when it was yanked from the shelves! Anybody else feel this way?? Hmmm... I hear the sound of crickets. The winemakers, Christian Brothers, through a very nicely done analysis learned that consumers associate packaging with product. Again, context matters.

The unfortunate irony of this whole thing is that the many epiphanies realized over the course of the story really didn't help our friend Kenna. Because the radio station relied on a different measurement system independent of industry experts to rate the song/album, these new ideas didn't matter in the end.

I guess the moral of the story is that the distribution and advertising channels', in fact, the entire "machine's" thinking needs to be consistent with experts', otherwise investing in a new product on experience based "buy-in" may simply be a waste of time. Rule # 333: When selling a product, you must sell it to your sales force first!

The next article I read was about how to approach translating customer input into new product innovations, and how often there was a tendency to focus on solutions rather than outcomes. To this, I say "fair enough". I think when we don't ask questions in the appropriate way, we often constrain our range of possible solutions. Look out below, here comes the "But"!

But, (don't say I didn't warn you) while this is often true, I don't believe it is always the case. Quite frequently when soliciting feedback from customers on products or processes they often have extraordinary ideas and solutions to inefficiencies or shortcomings that should absolutely not be taken lightly or brushed away. There are many consumers that are innovative or have experienced a product or process in a such a manner that has forced them to think hard about improvement ideas. Although these innovations and ideas may not necessarily lead to the best solution, or as the article maintains, become an incremental improvement at best, it is possible that a customer's solution or a set of solutions provided by a group of customers may be incorporated in the final product or process. I felt this article emphasized the merits of concentrating on outcome but did not highlight the potential advantages of collecting solutions as well.

The final article I read described a rather remarkable process for extracting the deep thoughts and feelings of consumers through primarily visual metaphors and a series of structured interviews. Throughout the article I attempted to put myself in the position of a consumer coming up with images or a collage of pictures from a popular product. I chose Coke.

Hey, it was on my mind from the previous article! Getting rid of New Coke, grrrrr... after all these years I'm still bitter.

The only picture that would continually bombard my thoughts was that damn polar bear and his sickly sweet smile. This made ask the question, "how deeply into our psyche does advertising penetrate and affect our deepest thoughts and innermost feelings?". Extending from this thought, does the ZMET process lend itself to an unavoidable bias based on the advertisements that we are constantly being hit with? And if this bias exists, are we merely producing memory regurgitations? Reasonable questions, I think.

Having said this, I feel that the approach is very creative and an interesting way of indirectly developing social maps of our feelings and emotions, biases aside.

All three articles were great reads. I'm looking forward to incorporating the best aspects of these new ideas as we move forward with the development of our persona, environment, and ultimately our final product. Seriously - I really am!

Stormin' Norm signing off. Over and out.

What I used to think was me is now a faded memory

Let me introduce myself.

My name is Norm and I'm a thirty-something year old single male hailing from London, Ontario, Canada, which is about 2 hours due southwest of Toronto. I am well educated and have undergraduate degrees in both science and engineering, so yes, I'm very savvy and well versed in technology, and yes, I'm also a geek... but in the best possible way. I worked as an engineer for a health sciences company (MDS) that specializes in developing and manufacturing mass spectrometers, devices used to diagnose really anything in nature down to a part-per-trillion concentration - to give you an idea of the instrument's precision, this would be akin to locating a bottle of wine in Lake Ontario. I know. Crazy, eh?

So what brought me down to Texas? Well, after working for many years at the same company, in the same role, with the same people, at some point I decided that I wanted to move into management and have a greater amount of influence over a company's direction, at least relative to an engineer's. Moreover, I desperately needed a change as I had gone through an extraordinarily brutal relationship break-up. McCombs seemed like a logical move.

That's my brief... very brief, "history of time".

So what are some of the key themes that are important in building my persona? First off, an important caveat is the axiom that the only constant in life is change. I write the disclaimer now that this is snapshot of me in time and certain interests and desires may be subject to change in a few years, a few days, or heck, maybe by 11 o'clock tonight once I have a few beers in me.

Yeah. Go team.

Let's start begin with the most important item and everybody's favorite subject - relationships. I'm single, in my thirties, and therefore much of my time is devoted to observing, thinking about, and chasing members of the opposite sex.

As a result, interests such as fashion, staying healthy and fit, and actively seeking and participating in social events are natural extensions of this passionate pursuit. Gym workouts, tennis games, b-school social events, and legendary nights out in Austin are all routine activities for me. All supported by student loans. Yikes.

This brings me to the next important issue. Money. I am one seriously leveraged man. Although I have a passion for new technology and the latest gadgets, eating at nice restaurants, and driving nice cars, I have severe cash flow problem. It's all negative. Price sensitive is not a strong enough phrase to describe me.

Time. I have little free idol time. I find I'm always busy doing something: Homework, looking for a job, attending a social event, doing some form of exercise, sleeping. Things that waste my time or are inefficient uses of my time frustrate me.

And who could forget sports?? Just like ice cream there's always room for it. Hockey? Love it. Basketball? Love it. Football? Love it. Baseball? Meh... it's okay. Yes, I'm also a jock.... but in the best possible way.

So there it is folks. Girls, money, time, sports. Nutshell.

So what does it all mean?

This week in customer insights we talked about the music industry and how an object at rest tends to stay at rest. To this date I don't believe the music industry has reacted to the characteristics and needs of its customers. I love to listen to music when I'm working out or doing homework, but guess what? 99 cents is far too much for me to pay for a song that I could download illegally for free, with only being hit by a minuscule moral pang. Music industry? Wake up.... or die in your sleep.

The I-Pad was announced this week. What I find most interesting about this product is that I don't what the heck its purpose is! The price doesn't appear to be outlandish ($499 US for the basic model). As we discussed in class perhaps its not just the functionality of the device, but maybe there's an entire experience associated with it. Further investigation warranted.

http://technology.canoe.ca/2010/01/27/12633821-ap.html

My First Entry

Is this thing on?