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customers’ mind, in order to
discover the desires, wishes, and
the hidden causes of their options,
so that there is a possibility to get
them what they want.”
Neuromarketing is one way of
understanding the customer, and
it is actively used by companies
such as Google and Disney to test
consumer impressions. However, it
is not in itself a solution to knowing
what customers want to buy. A
broader perspective is needed to
truly understand a market and the
elements that shape it. In some
cases it is pure innovation, driven
by a desire to transform the way
people live through technology, that
gives customers something they
didn’t realize they wanted, though
the need for it was there. Apple’s
iPad is an example of how forward
thinking about what customers
lives could be like can lead to
market success.
Innovative solutions
When the iPad was unveiled in
2010, investors and the press were
sceptical, wondering who would
want one, given that a laptop
computer had more functions and
was only slightly bigger. The iPad
was a sellout because customers
loved using it—it was fun and fast,
and allowed them to do all the
things they enjoyed on their iPod
touch but with a bigger screen and
a keyboard that was easier to use.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs claimed
in an interview with Fortune
magazine never to have done
consumer research. “It isn’t the
consumer’s job to know what they
want,” he reportedly said. “That
doesn’t mean we don’t listen to
customers, but it’s hard for them
to tell you what they want when
they’ve never seen anything
remotely like it.”
Steve Jobs instinctively
understood what the consumer
wanted because he had the same
problem: the lack of a well-designed,
portable device that would make
communication and information-
gathering fun and easy.SUCCESSFUL SELLING
Steve Jobs of Apple encouraged the
company to consider the changing
technological world and people’s existing
daily habits to provide an innovative
solution to an unfelt need: the iPad.
Although Peter Drucker emphasized
the importance of knowing the
customer, he did not narrow this to
just asking the customer what they
want; he intended that business
should also think ahead and find
ways to innovate. “The “want” a
business satisfies may have been
felt by the customer before he was
offered the means of satisfying it,”
he reasoned. “It remained a
potential “want” until the action
of businessmen converted it into
effective demand. Only then is
there a customer and a market.”
Professor Ranjay Gulati
maintains that the first step in
understanding the new, highly
competitive market of the 21st
century is asking customers the
right questions; the most important
ones being what problems and
issues they are dealing with. But
he says that a business must make
a creative leap to figure out the
innovations that will serve those
customer needs, if they want to
survive in the market place. ■Did Alexander Graham
Bell do any market
research before he
invented the telephone?
Steve Jobs