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You would think that after over 40 years from when the below was first published by DDB, that it would not be necessary anymore. Yet these below statements are the very thing social media enthusiast continue to preach. Maybe social media will give consumers the leverage to make sure companies follow the below recommendations.
I am a fan of old Pacific Lutheran football coach Frosty Westering and a saying he uses before he speaks “empty your cup”. (Being Frosty, he actually demonstrates the illustration, water goes everywhere etc.) The essence of the saying is that if we go into anything thinking our cup of knowledge is full, we will not have any room to learn anything knew.
We must first empty our cup, and then look for ways to fill it with the knowledge of others.
This is something that I struggle with, and am trying to work on. I am an internet geek, I know a little about a lot, but true knowledge comes from relationships not the internet.
I struggle with this at my job as well. As an Ad Exec, I have a tendency to always want to come off as the marketing “expert” to my clients. I have the education, experience, support groups, etc. and my client does not, so I should understand marketing more than most of my clients who spend most of the day running their businesses.
But that is not always the case. As much as I try to understand my clients business, they still know it better than I do. Sometimes I make a mistake or overlook something, and the client can add some good insight. Other times my clients wealth of knowledge might be different than mine, and they may offer a great idea that I have never thought of.
Bottom line, no matter how much of an expert you think you are in any particular area, always listen to others as if they are an expert. It's amazing what you learn with an open mind.
From what I can gather about Apple from online research, they have done very little consumer research in recent years. This goes from simple focus groups, or even using online social monitoring programs to see what consumers are talking about. Instead it seems Steve thinks he knows what is best for us. He does not see a reason to use social monitoring, because he knows more about what consumers want than they do.
Take the lack of a picture messaging and video capabilities on the iPhone. I am sure that people within Apple brought these feature ideas to Steve before the 1st gen iPhone ever hit beta development and Steve simply said no, I know best. Why picture messaging? I use email for that. Why video? The quality would not be that good, and the files will take up too much space, they don’t need that. Then after the iPhone came out, everyone wanted these features, and they would cost little to add to the phone, but two years later and we are still waiting. Why? Because Steve knows what is best for us, and really does not care what we think.
Sure there are exceptions to that rule. Most of the time it happens when a 3rd party comes forward with an idea that is successful, and then Apple copies it or acquires it. Case in point, the iPhone App Store. Remember the outrage after word came out that Apple would not allow you to install software on the device? It was amazing, in weeks someone had found a way unlock the phone and apps were made.
This lack of control must have made Jobs extremely mad. Mad enough to actually listen to others and develop the App Store, but this is by far the exception to the rule. The funny part is that when Apple does listen to their consumers (Ok, not really listen, more like respond to an outrage) they come out with some of their best products. I think Jobs says, fine they want something, well we are going to do it like no one has done before and blow their socks off.
Why don’t they simply listen to consumers at the beginning of the development process? Why don’t they simply ask for feedback, actually read their customer service forums? Why don’t they take these ideas, improve on them and make them world class?
In a way Apples consumers see more potential for the company than Jobs does. Why no DVR function in the Apple TV, why no Bluray support, why no docking station for the MB Pro? The list could go on and on. But to everyone on the outside, it just seems like Apple and Steve are being stubborn, and simply refuse to believe we know what we need.
Part III will look at how this is affecting thier customer service....
Funny thing is that I put this blog together to get things off my chest, and now I have nothing to write about. Being down on the Oregon Coast in May gives me a lot of time, so I thought I would give it a shot anyway. Just start typing and see what happens, come up with a title later. Marketing as we see it now and in the past is pushed to consumers. We try to tell people what they want and what they need. We tell them they should live healthy, be happy, and everyone should love them, and our products are going to help them do that. Our soda will make you happy and cool, our cars will make people love you and happy, basically almost all of what we try to sell appeals to those three emotions.
In today's internet age people no longer are looking for companies to tell them what they should be doing. They are more into self discovery and individualism. People are do not trust anyone in this age unless they found it to be "true" for themselves. Everything must be researched, reviewed, and tested.
We no longer want to be told what will make us healthy, happy, or will bring us love, instead we want to discover this on our own.
How do we as marketers change our strategy to take advantage of this??????
TBC ....
