Answers for Adam: Should marketers ignore what consumers want?

I think you are over stretching. Perhaps Ikea is actually tapping a consumer desire to assemble their own stuff? Thereby exploiting the handy person within all of us? Or perhaps a major fear when buying economical or cheap furniture is that it’s poorly constructed – therefore by getting people to self assemble Ikea is allaying that fear in a very unique way. In either case we are still getting something we desire… scandinavian designer furniture at affordable prices. Is this not a consumer want?

With the shop layout I reckon there are plenty of people who will complain but secretly love the novelty – drop the kids off at the creche, look at all the funky colourful furniture, eat a ludicrously cheap hotdog… I think they are pushing the experience and it’s something we respond to. Sure I complain when I go to Ikea but I still go there.

A marketer has two options.
Meet consumers needs.
Create consumer wants.
Consumers spend a great deal of dollars on things/services not actually needed and they desparately want.
The best marketers make consumers think that their wants are in fact needs.
Marketing 101.

The abundance of data available these days can blind marketers and distract them from the basics of marketing.

If you’re paying your research agency to ask consumers what they want and then feed it back to you verbatim then you’re throwing money down the drain.

Consumer research and understanding isn’t about direct regurgitation of consumer demands but understanding the motivation and triggers behind these to build consumer insight and develop products, strategy and communications accordingly.

A good partnership between researcher and creative allows you to uncover the hidden needs that the consumer is yet to realise exist. Understanding the world they live in and always keeping one step ahead.

No, the industry is not over-stating the role of understanding consumer needs and desire

The Ikea Effect is similar (well a bit anyways) to that of Impressionist paintings. Apparently our brain responds positively to having to put together/decipher the content of the image ourselves. Hence why they are such gallery blockbusters.

You could also argue that Ikea has successfully exploited the most blindingly obvious consumer trigger i.e. good design at low prices. Assembly is a necessity of this model and something which is accepted by the customer as a trade off.

flatpack: Overcame HUGE consumer barriers with shopper able to 1) get large piece of furniture straight away and not six weeks later and 2) put something that would normally require a delivery truck straight into their car. I believe this ‘innovation’ was one of the reasons for starting the business.

layout: Non-purchasing area link not working on my desktop, but I believe the reason isn’t just a duration thing, it’s more for the impulse purchases made when walking past the entire range of stock. You walk in wanting a lamp and walk out with a ladle and a carpet and a stool as well. JB HiFi works on the same principle, although using clutter instead of order.

duration: more controlled environment than a mall for killing ‘very young family’ time. Adelaide Ikea was voted most popular family restaurant by straw poll a few years ago.

What’s the difference between a Newton and an iPad? Jony Ive designed both, so it might be something other than beauty. Perhaps the multiplification of utility via iStore? Steve Jobs also found a ‘Menu’ interface and a ‘Mouse’ controller languishing in the backrooms at Xerox.

Data is noise.

Brilliance is picking out the signal.

Genius is anticipating the signal.

To answer your question – I’d argue that disruptive ideas that go against convention should be tested and researched. So no, I don’t think you can under estimate the role of research.

A good point, but if you will forgive me –in my opinion the question needs slight editing to become the right question.

What marketing today is doing (or should be doing) should not be as focussed on “creating great brands”.

Brands still have power, but not like they used to. See James Surowiecki’s article in the New Yorker earlier this year about the end of brand-power. He put it better than I have the space to here and sighted some compelling cases but the basic point is that in the age of the easily available customer review you are only ever as good as your last product. Remember those Sony ads “It’s a….Sony”. That worked back then. Say “It’s a Sony” now and the response will be “Yeah but is it any good?”

So “marketing today” might not be “over-stating the role of understanding consumer wants and needs” because they are trying to create “great brands” but rather because they are trying to get an edge over the equally as good products of the competition. If you have 2 equally good products – why then should a consumer purchase product A over product B – one possibly answer is because product A’s marketing team pitches the product better to “benefits” to the consumer rather than just pitching “features” which the completion can usually match.

Are they right to do this? As always a good answer is – it depends. Case by case. However long term there are benefits to be reaped from focusing on consumer needs over and above solely using buyer behaviour in the way that Ikea has. There are also possible backlashes from consumers if they feel that they are being exploited by companies and manipulated into a “buying frenzy” – hence the rise of the anti-dollar dollar.

I saw Frederic Gennart (of IKEA) and his research agency present at an ESOMAR conference last year raving about the value of the consumer insights they were able to derive from a large scale, iterative global research community they conducted in 2013.

By engaging consumers in a study exploring the role of the catalogue, consumers’ relationship with it, and their behaviours surrounding it, IKEA successfully launched a new catalogue format, significantly different to previous years, and a mobile app to support it.

So it seems that the focus is very much on the consumer in IKEA’s decision making…

Answer to the question? Yes. Absolutely. Over-stated by miles.

I’ve always believed it to be somewhere in between though the more experience I gain “doing” marketing the more I answer “yes”.

Customers are the reason brands exist. Without followers, fans, customers, a brand has no life or relevance. That’s indisputable (though I’m sure someone will tell me if they think otherwise).

Adam makes the point about Steve Jobs and his attitude to product design and ideas. That’s famous.

Bob Lutz, in his book “Gutz” also talks about how customers killed the Ford Thunderbird, turning it from a groundbreaking 2-door American sports car into a run-of-the-mill 4-door sedan as design teams soaked up the research on customer wants and needs.

The saying “a camel is a horse designed by a committee” also applies. Substitute the “committee” for “focus group” if you will.

Obviously customers are important. The hand their cash and data to you. But tapping a consumer desire or drawing an insight is different to asking them outright, through whatever means, what they want.

Like Steve Jobs said (and who knows if he was the first though he sure won’t be the last): customers don’t know what they want until you tell them.

Introducing Ikea….

@Nate – agree 100%

It’s a waste of time and money to ask consumers what they want and hope the answer will brief your product developers.

What consumers want is to be pleasantly surprised and it’s in the nature of a surprise that you don’t know it until you see it.

Harry Potter was rejected by loads of publishers because it didn’t tick the boxes in their heads, boxes born of studying “consumer needs and wants”, I’m sure. And there’s so many other examples in the film industry. But they are exceptions of course. And there’s the burn. The stuff that comes out of massive research is probably going to work. But it isn’t going to be the brilliant exception that works out of all proportion to spend. The brilliant exceptions require risk taking – not research. But they’re exceptions and who’s gonna bet their house on an exception.

and

I thought Ikea was about being able to buy furniture and shove it in your car then and there. Product benefit – I don’t have to wait.

IKEA is NOT consumer focussed. The Swedish cult is falling way behind and is too arrogant/complacent to see it. If it had any interest in consumer wants/needs it would be offering online shopping. Marcail Abuthnot, good to see you fell for their hype, their catalogue is dying.

Even as someone who makes my living from ‘understanding consumer wants and needs’, I find myself answering ‘yes’ to the question – if ‘overstating’ means slavishly reacting / responding to consumer needs. This limits you to trying to identify and meet ‘unmet needs’, which as Adam rightly points out, can blind you to other opportunities. But understanding consumer needs / wants so as to understand what to influence, change or dare I say create (as opposed to just ‘meet’) is invaluable.