The Core Of Strategy And Research

Jack TroutMarch 14, 20095 min

Seems I’ve spent a lot of time in the interviewee chair over the years. Going through my desk I came across a discussion I had with Tom H. C. Anderson. You’ll see his questions in bold. Our talk began with what is central to any strategy or research effort

My point of view has always been the fact that very simply all marketing takes place in the mind of your prospect. It’s where the battle is and any research that develops, to me, gives me a sense of the perception that exists in the mind of a customer about a given product or a category of products and the assurance of that perception. In other words, who owns what idea is really what it comes down to…

What happens in terms of categories, in terms of brands? How much are they perceived as being different versus how much are they perceived as being commodities, again, back to strength of perceptions about a given product or category. I find that very very useful… If your assignment is to differentiate your product, make it more attractive than your competitors’ products, and suddenly, you look at a large intensive bank of research that says that your category is heading into commodity country; you are not doing your job.

Can you give us an example of a company that used perceptions and attitudes to effectively differentiate themselves from everyone else?

Well, I would say in the automotive category that’s starting with the ones that all have differentiated themselves very effectively, I would say that you are looking at of course BMW the ultimate driving machine, the drive ability, you’re looking at Volvo it has done a reasonable job with safety, although they haven’t been as consistent with that as they should be. I think Toyota with the concept of reliability, that perception has been very very powerful. I think Mercedes’ is engineering, in terms of that attribute and perception. Of course Ferrari is all about speed. And I say that that’s the highlight of the category, once you get away from those brands, you find a lot of GMs’ cars, and a lot of Fords’ cars and Chrysler’s cars are not well differentiated. And I think that’s part of the problem. You know. In the land of toothpaste, you obviously see well differentiated, you know, Crest with cavity prevention for a number of years, Colgate also in that category, now Colgate with the perception of not only cavity prevention but tartar control and the germ killing. So they kind of own three ideas. So in other words, what you’re after is owning something, owning a concept. Now is making that the essence of what the product is about, that’s the point of difference.

Well, it seems that segmentation can help choose a concept to pursue or own, right?

Let’s just think of Volvo, if you’re going to be selling the concept of safety, the segment that you would appeal to would be more of your family oriented segment. Not necessarily your hot shot that wants to drive fast. So certain things line up with certain segments, but you can get nutty over trying to break this market place into too many pieces and I think what you find out is that the leading products tend to cover most of the market because they own the biggest attribute. And after you get by that, you’re going to have to find a niche or segment of the market that perhaps you can appeal to, it’s not as big as the overall market, but at least it’s a piece. So that to me is what I think is segmentation: what is the best group or segment that this product is going to appeal to.

What do you think about the idea of one-to-one marketing?

It is essentially very powerful. Well let me tell you where people get confused. One-to-one marketing is about customer retention. It’s hanging on to your customers. You see, it’s a lot more efficient to hang on to your customers than it is to generate more; you know have to constantly generate new ones, which is more costly. Positioning and strategy are about attracting new customers. One-to-one marketing is about hanging on to the existing customer base. It’s all about keeping in touch with your customer base. So I see that as a terrific follow on to attracting customers. It’s a two-part problem. You part one attract them, and then part two hang on to them.

Do you have any tips for new heads of research within Fortune 500 companies on how they should position themselves within the company?

Well, my tip for them is essentially they should become the measurer and qualifier of perception. What’s in people’s mind? But you can’t get too crazy with it. The biggest problem with marketing research is it gets too complicated. They have more variations especially with the internet and new numbers and they slice and they dice and I think if you’re not careful, you’re going to generate nothing but confusion. You’re going to generate too much information. It’s the more you have the less clarity you’re going to have. I’d be very careful about developing research to figure out what people want; going into peoples’ minds and figuring out what they want. People tend to not know what they want.

Mark Twain once said “you can’t get the truth out of people until they’re dead and dead a long time”. People tell you might what they think you might want to hear or people might say to you what they think, they’re going say what they think will make them look smarter or good, so truth is an elusive commodity. So you’ve got to be very careful with research that is aimed at trying to find out what people think or want, very careful about that. Look back at the presidential Election – specifically the New Hampshire primary. They went in there and said, ‘wow looks like Obama’s going to win’, well guess what? You know, a lot of people weren’t telling him the truth, or, they weren’t talking to the right people. You’ve got to be careful about research.

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Jack Trout

One comment

  • Hoo See Kong

    March 18, 2009 at 12:50 am

    I agree we got to be very careful about research when using it to support our marketing core strategy – on Positioning, Segmentation & Innovation.

    The battle for the consumer minds has now become so fierce that functional benefits of the brand will not help much in creating a clear brand differentiation. Even if it does, the benefits could be copied and put into the market by the competitors very quickly. So any positioning, segmentation and innovation issues could not be addressed by solely looking at the functional level of your brand operation.

    It is critical to include the emotional benefits/needs of your consumers in your brand differentiation approach. This gives you a better chance of success in achieving sustainable brand differentiation – leading to powerful positioning, segmentation and innovations.

    Any research to address the positioning, segmentation and innovation issues should research into the emotional level of the consumers. So far the consumer psychology need-based model (e.g NeedScope(TM) Archetypal Model)used in research to help clients in these areas of strategy has some success stories.

    So be very careful about research. Getting into the consumer minds for rational feedback is part of the story. Essentially we need to also get into the consumer heart/soul for the emotional feedback (with the help of psychology)in your research.

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