Buying for All the Wrong Reasons

Falling in love with your products carries the same risk as falling in love with your stocks: you don’t let go when you should.

There are many reasons why people buy a specific product.  Any product.  Though marketers and their firms would like to think that people buy for the 4-5 reasons summarized in marketing plans, buying motivations operate in a more complex manner.  

Take any well-known product.  If you interviewed a statistically valid sample of buyers to learn why they bought, you’d likely end up with a very long list indeed.  Often, buyers will cite identical (or nearly so) buying considerations - so it’s easy to lump these buyers together and view them uniformly.  This is how buying segments are formed.  Yet, upon examination, other factors may end up being contributors to what may otherwise appear to be a similar buying motive.

Take food products, for example.  Marketers know that taste is a principal buying factor.  But taste perception is not uniform.  As at least 5 distinct tastes can be perceived, people don’t necessarily mean the same thing when they say that they like a product’s taste.  What is salty to one may be spicy to another.  They are not the same, and it would be unwise to treat them as such.  Likewise, laptop manufacturers know that speed represents a whole category of buying factors.  Yet, buyers could equally be referring to disk I/O, application load times, processor, bus, screen refresh rate, and so on.  These cannot be conveniently lumped together into a bucket labeled speed.  What is fast to one buyer does not mean the same as fast to another.  The distinction is not trivial.

Neither is gathering such data.  It takes time and can be expensive - which is why only a small proportion of firms undertake this kind of research regularly.

Why research it at all?  

Because sometimes firms learn a couple of surprising things.  First, people may buy a product  predominantly for a reason that was not anticipated.  Such a discovery can be serendipitous to the seller who, wisely, alters promotion to align the product’s appeal to the market.  Second, the marketing appeal that is promoted by the seller may even harm the acceptance of the product in the market.  Of the two outcomes, this is the frightening one.

Sometimes a potentially good product is doomed by making an appeal (or positioning the product) in a way that defeats its acceptance in the marketplace.

There are plenty of examples: 

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  • Ford Edsel (positioned between the Ford and Mercury lines)
  • Brown-Forman clear whiskey (buyers perceived it akin to gin and vodka)
  • RC Cola challenge (how could a distant third cola really taste better than the other two)
  • Alka Seltzer Plus (perceived as improved, not as a cold remedy)
  • Xerox computers - “The machine that doesn’t copy” (no one knew what that meant or what to expect)
  • Life Savers gum (the reflexive thought of “the hole” didn’t compute)
  • Bayer non-aspirin acetaminophen (how can Bayer aspirin make non-aspirin, why would they do it, and why should I care?)
  • Mennen Protein 21 shampoo (why should you care about protein for your hair?)
  • Marlboro Menthol (how many cowboys smoke menthol cigarettes?)

Which brings me to the purpose for writing this blog.

Every company I know (certainly in the technology sector) develops products with a view as to what the primary and secondary market appeals will be.  When you think about it, it’s very difficult not to do so.

Those same companies test out those concepts with industry analysts and customers.  The problem, however, is that those test runs [a] gather anecdotal evidence, and [b] there’s a back-and-forth give-and-take on any issues that arise.  All of which is good.  The only problem with this is such opportunities never arise when buyers are perusing an ad, reading a promotional email, or scanning the seller’s website.  The seller’s proposition sets the stage for the buyer’s expectations.

That task falls to the sales person.

It’s perfectly fine to be passionate about your products.  After all, management knows how much money, time and expertise goes into developing them.  But the reasons a firm loves a product may not synchronize with the sentiments of the market.  In this case it’s the perception of the market that rules.  The customer is always right!

Love your product for what it means to the firm and its development team.  Love it even more for what it means to your customers.  Shareholders will appreciate it.