New Coke tastes better! Who Cares???

Being the best at what you do isn’t nearly good enough.

For those of you who weren’t alive in the 80’s, Coca Cola decided to change the Coke recipe. They did numerous taste tests, found a large majority of the people they tested liked the new product better than the original soda, slapped the word ‘new’ on their cans and began to sell ‘New Coke.’

It was a disaster. People hated the idea of their soft drink being changed. Thousands of people complained, there were boycotts, and public protests. Three months later, Coke announced that it would be going back to the old recipe, dubbing it Coca Cola Classic.
New Coke was better tasting. People liked it more. It should have been a hit.

Other examples:

Betamax –vs- VHS. Beta had a better picture quality, but lost out to VHS as the standard in the 80’s.

Nintendo Game Boy –vs- Sega Game Gear and the Atari Lynx. It should have been no contest. The Game Gear and Lynx had better graphics and full color, but it was the Game Boy that won in the end.

HDDVD –vs- Blueray. No major difference between the two, except that they are still making BlueRays and HDDVD is dead.
Retail history is full of cases like these.

What causes this situation? Even though there are a lot of reasons, one of the biggest is branding. Sega Game Gear was thought to have fewer games than the Game Boy, though nearly 400 games were produced. It had nothing to do with the actual number of games, just that it was perceived as having fewer. The New Coke was a better tasting product, but people didn’t like the thought of their favorite drink changing.

Branding – how people perceive your product – is a huge factor is the success of a product.

Do people think about your product? When they do think about it, is the thought good? More importantly, how does the customer feel about your business? Do they like your employees? Do they like how your place looks? Is it clean, neat, and lit correctly? Do they like you?

I could have the best product in the world, but if I was to open a store that was messy, called all of my customers ‘dude’, and never bothered to answer my phone or return messages, I won’t sell that product.

This is not to say that the product isn’t important. I hope that you have pride in whatever it is that you sell. The product is important. If the old Coke hadn’t been liked, Coca Cola would never have been in a position to make the change. If the Game Boy wasn’t fun to play, the other hand helds would have been more popular. If you couldn’t watch your movies on the VHS, we would still be trying to find a Betamax for those old home movies. The product is what people want to buy.

Branding makes people want to buy from you.

The customer is always right?

Some clichés have a bit of truth in them, but others fall flat on their faces.

Marshal Field, founder of Marshal Field and Company, based his stores customer service upon that slogan, believing that one should always put the customer first to make them feel special.

I can’t begin to refute the idea behind the statement.  Customers make our businesses what they are.  We can’t have a business without them, so we’d better make them important.

But it’s not the business owner who has changed the meaning of the phrase.  All too often customers take the phrase and attempt to prove it literally correct by dictating jobs they have hired someone to do.

In the graphic design industry, this is a common occurrence.  I’ve had many customers come in and tell me exactly how they wanted their design.  I had one person tell give me a list of things they wanted on their business card including their company name, her name, address, three phone numbers, email, a list of their services, 7 lines of text describing what they do and a picture of themselves (I did it and they were happy, but you won’t see that card in my portfolio any time soon).

If the customer is always right, why did I spend 4 years at a university and 1000s of hours of study to learn my craft?  Why am I currently in debt for thousands of dollars worth of student loans?  And more importantly – why would you hire me, a graphic designer, to design something you’ve already designed?

In any industry, you’ll find people who believe that they know more than you do.  They follow ‘The customer is always right’ as if it’s an iron clad rule.

The truth is this.  The customer is the customer.  They are the most important part of your business.  They should be treated well, made to feel important and cherished for who they are, but to allow them to dictate the way your business runs is foolish at best.  Who’s going to want to hire you when they see the horrible logo ‘you’ designed for your customer?

This holds true for any industry.  Chiropractors – If you let your patient dictate how their treatment is handled and they are still in pain, will their friends come to you?  Restaurateurs – Will you get repeat business if you prepare a meal differently than normal because a customer demanded it and it’s awful?  If you drive a taxi and a customer wants you to go the longest route possible, are they going to be mad at themselves or you when the fare is double what it should be?  In any business, I promise you that the customer thinks he is paying too much for too little.  Do you want to allow them to be right?

They may not always be right, but they will always be the customer.

Ubiquitous

Ubiquitous [yoo-bik-wi-tuhs] - existing or being everywhere, esp. at the same time; omnipresent.

What is ubiquitous?  Tim Horton's, McDonald's, Ford F150’s, Minivans, road construction in the Summer?

Advertising.  Our world is chock full of it.  Television, Radio, the internet.  We see advertisements for new movies when we go to the movies.  Billboards, road signs, Electronic signs flashing from the street corner.  Magazines, books, newspapers.  I get about 5 inches of newspaper flyers in my mailbox every week.  People standing on street corners, hold up signs for pizza places, movie rentals and furniture stores.  Occasionally I’ll get text messages from my phone company with ads.  Even hotel room keys have ads now.

They’re everywhere.

And many, most if not all, are from the big boys. Fast food, beer, big box stores, hip clothing retailers, car manufacturers, credit cards and prepackaged food.

When companies like Coca-Cola can spend $750 million in 2009, how can a mom & pop shop compete when their advertising budget may only be $200 for the year?

The answer is simple.  They can’t.

But why would Mom and Pop even try.  There is a lot of different advertising mediums out there.  I named a nearly two dozen, and those were just the first ones to pop to my mind.

The goal isn’t to compete; it’s to find that medium that is needed to bring in the customers.