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.