A recent Kia poster strapline on the London underground stating that “you make us make better cars” reinforces the rationale for marketing. One of the first things any student of marketing learns, is the importance of customer opinion. Whether this is active market research prior to an exciting product launch or a focus group to determine the impact of a new service initiative; listening and responding to feedback is an essential part of any marketing activity.
The inspiration for this piece came whilst watching a programme called “Tales from the Tour Bus”. This was a programme chronicling fifty years of rock bands tours and how they have dramatically been transformed. Starting in the early 60’s where getting a room at Mrs. Miggins guest house was considered to be a luxury, through to the modern day excesses of the luxury hotels, where the challenge is often to “prevent the so called rock legend from throwing the TV into the swimming pool from a great height!”
All these step changes have come about as a direct result of listening to what the customer wants, creating a programme of work to drive the change and of course turning intentions into actions.
By association, the customer listening process has now become an integral part to of any R&D programme and needs to be continuously reviewed and refined to gain ongoing competitive advantage. What of course no classical marketing text book will teach you is the part that serendipity can also play in product development and this should never be under estimated.
As an erstwhile research scientist involved in R&D some 20 years ago, involvement in 2 major projects highlighted how unintended consequences can play a part in commercial success. To save several pages of techno speak, the table below summarises these development and their contribution to industry. Both quite chance developments, however, without the interplay of the marketing dept. “knowing what the market or customer wants” and the scientists “finding homes for serendipitous discoveries” neither of these products would have seen the light of day.
To return to the rock bus, here are 2 song titles from rock bands which epitomise the role of the marketer.
- Everything we do, we do it for you
- Everything we do, is driven by you
My preference is for a line in a song by the Killers where they mention “I don’t shine if you don’t shine!”
Can you think of any others?
