Consumer needs to be first – I’m saying absolutely YES. Consumer is left, right and center to any successful business. But once you’ve acknowledged that, and have built the proper processes to ensure consumer-centric business ethics, you might want to take it up a notch and design a product/campaign/brand … for yourself … or at least ask the following question for whatever you “sell”: would YOU buy what you make? Is it good enough? Does it have enough design? Does it feel cool & exciting? Would YOU be willing to put your money down for it? If the answer is “no” you might have a problem.
My inspiration for this comes from Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, father of the amazing 911 Porsche, and creator of the Porsche AG company. He commented on this very topic – “I just get a kick out of MAKING THINGS BETTER – because in the end, I’m always making them for myself.” And he is actually right.
Another analogy: at Google, people are motivated to continuously innovate. They have to present new ideas every month. BUT, there is a catch to that at Google: they have to be able to at least convince two colleagues before they can recommend an idea to the organization, i.e. they have to make sure THEY love it first, and through their passion convince two other to love it as well. Brilliant if you ask me.
So, let go of your typical consumer-centric-business-process. Go a step beyond.
And yeah yeah, I know it’s kind of controversial to let go of typical consumer centric business processes. Especially when you open up the discussion around targeting. And especially since you can slap my own beliefs into my face (one of them being: “I am not the consumer!”). Well, the world isn’t all black & white is my excuse. On top of that, there is the argument that not everything can be researched. Consumer immersive research, in whatever form or shape, only tells you so much. And design, as a growing consumer thing, is “untouchable” (i.e. how it makes you feel is more important than what it makes you think of -see the growth of the like of Pinterest). Some things are just too difficult for consumers to understand, and for them to see it part of their lives. Why? Consumers don’t “see” the link between solution and need.
Steve Jobs firmly believed that. When asked what research was done for the iPad, his answer was: “None! It isn’t the consumers’ job to know what they want.” – I agree
To recap:
- Start with the consumer. Find the deeper need.
- Build a strong solution/product/experience against that need.
- Go a step beyond. Build it as if it were for yourself.
- Make it perfect. Or better. Along the way. Imperfection at start is ok.
- Let go of consumer frantic testing.
- Add a “design” layer onto it to top it up.
- Believe. And go for it.
- Hope and pray that you have leaders that support all of the above 😉
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