🪞"I Know What the Market Needs": No, You Probably Don't!
Product Orientation is typically expensive and unsuccessful.
One Big Thing: Unilever’s investment in an “accessible” deodorant proves that Market Orientation matters.
Market Orientation: looking at the world through the eyes of your market is a key idea in marketing and strategy success.
Product Orientation: building the product, hoping people will come with education is seductive. The hit rate on this approach is often low. The most famous example of success: Post-It notes.
Accessible is good: But market research would have been better.
Conversations with disabled folks, caregivers, and other relevant folks would have helped Unilever hit closer to the mark from the jump.
How would that have played out in this case?
Research would have done things like:
Helped Unilever identify what customers needed right away and could have designed their product around what people needed.
Helped Unilever understand the different market segments and what they consider value now.
Overcoming the inclination to focus on the product right away: Many businesses are built on products. These product-based businesses often begin with the POV: “I know what the customer wants or needs.”
When they work, you often see huge success like Post-It notes.
Most of these products fail because they don’t reflect what the customer really wants or values.
Avoid this by:
Stepping back and reminding yourself that the customer comes first.
Doing some research even something as simple as a one-on-one conversation.