is fast and furious like a meteor shower. The slower the burn, the longer the trend. The faster the change, the quicker the fad. The entrepreneur must be very keen in discerning which opportunities will be worth investing in for the long term and which ones require rapid entries and exits. In general, customer preferences for items with high emotional valence take a longer time to change. This is true for food cooked “the way grandma used to make it,” music composed “during the good old days” and lifestyles that “we grew up with.” Items that customers purchase because “everybody else is buying it” have a shorter lifespan like pearl shakes, puka shells and potpourri.
What piques customers is a great source of opportunities. Take the example of an upscale hotel like Westin Hotels and Resorts (Frances X. Frei, Chekitan S. Dev and Laure Mougeot Stroock, “Westin Hotels and Resorts: Operations of a Lifestyle Experience,” Harvard Business School. May 7, 2007). It wanted to go to the upper end of its market segment and beat competitors like Marriot and Hyatt. Westin commissioned a research group to conduct a survey of 600 executives. The survey revealed that 63% of the executive travelers complained that their quality of sleep was much less on the road than at home. They were piqued that their performance suffered because they had a terrible night’s sleep in a hotel room. Westin searched for the right bed for six months. They wanted to make it look and feel residential. In 1999, they launched the all-white luxury “Heavenly Bed,” costing Westin US$30 million. Another research in 2001, with 1,000 respondents, zeroed in on low water pressure in the bath or shower as their top pet peeve. A smaller percentage complained that the shower curtains got sucked in and touched the showering guests. This prompted Westin to introduce the “Heavenly Bath.” These and other “heavenly innovations” jettisoned Westin ahead of its slow- reacting competitors.
There are many irks and irritants that customers experience everyday, like long queues, rooms that are too cold or too warm, soup that is not hot, zippers that get stuck, bands that are painfully noisy, restaurant lights that are too dim for reading the menu, salesladies that follow you around the shop, guards that frisk, smoke that stick to your clothes, shoes that don’t fit “just right,” horrendous traffic, late planes, waterless bathrooms, smelly staff, no sugar-free desserts, dry skin, oily hair and so on ad infinitum. For every irk, there is a customer quirk. For every irritant, there is a customer want. The opportunistic entrepreneur should learn to love the picky, pesky and petulant customer airing out all his or her piques. It will be the start of a wonderful romance if all the lamentations are converted to adulations.
Before the customer is won over, there is first a battle for his or her mind. Next, there is a battle for the heart. Finally, there is a battle for the wallet. The first battle is one of perception, of convincing the customer that the product is “the one” best choice to make among many. Oftentimes, the “best” is confused with the “first” choice because customers have the tendency to perceive that the “original first of its kind in the market” deserves a “monument” in the mind. That is why people never forget the first man on the moon nor their first love for that matter. The second one is often relegated to the graveyard unless the second makes an unabashed claim to be a zealous second. The most famous example is Avis rent-a-car which admitted that it only plays second fiddle to Hertz, that’s why “we try harder.”
The human brain tries to categorize and classify information received so that it does not get overwhelmed with too much detail. Because of this, product promoters spend considerable effort and resources to be at the customer’s “top of mind.” They advertise very heavily. They distribute their goods everywhere to make them very visible. They organize sensational product launches, hire celebrities to endorse the product and offer promotions too good to refuse. Their major goal is to convince the customers that the product is worth trying. Then the battle for the heart begins. Customers become loyal to the new product only if their expectations are met when they do actually use the product. Winning this immediate loyalty is crucial because the product promoter cannot continue spending tons of money to win over another set of customers who will try out the product. Besides, the first set of customers would have already spread the good or bad news about the product.
The longer the customer wants to use the product, the greater the chances for creating lasting loyalty. The objective is to make the customer identify with the product. The customer should say “this is me, this is what I want!” It is quite important, therefore, for the product promoter to target a chosen group of customers who will readily identify with the product, the message it carries and the attributes and features it boasts of. This creates a “position” in the mind, which leads to a “place” in the heart. The customer then gives the product its so-called brand equity, connoting a sense of ownership and belonging.
Case Example: San Miguel Beer
San Miguel beer has won the hearts of its most avid customers. The company has long found out that their loyal customer base comprises only 18% of the drinking population but they consume 80% of the beer. These are young and old adult males who drink out together as a “barkada” or a closely-bonded group of friends. In fact, beer drinking probably helped to solidify the group through shared experiences and stories that get told and retold every drinking session. The ads of San Miguel have always emphasized the happy, rowdy, fun-loving barkada to etch an indelible imprint in the hearts of its loyal customers.
Since the loyal customers of San Miguel consume a lot of beer, winning the battle for their wallet depends on the price of the beer. If the customer drinks four or five bottles per drinking session,
the relevant price of the beer equals its total consumption in terms of liters. There are other ways for the barkada to make merry. There are substitutes like gin, vodka, whisky and brandy. Or, there can be a stronger beer like Red Horse, which packs a stronger kick. The budget-conscious customers might shift to the cheaper substitutes on ordinary drinking days but return to good old San Miguel when there are occasions to celebrate. In other words, San Miguel might win the mind and hearts of customers but winning the wallet may be more difficult because the product has a more expensive bottle and contains lesser alcohol per bottle compared to other alcoholic beverages. In the past, San Miguel beer drinkers have benchmarked the “acceptable” price of each bottle against the price of one “balut,” a delicacy consumed with beer. Balut, or duck embryo, is supposed to have aphrodisiac effects. The bonding of beer with balut has, therefore, created an even stronger brand equity for the macho, San Miguel beer-drinking male. It would be extremely difficult for purveyors of intoxicating drinks to change the perception of the Filipino male drinker that San Miguel is the “best beer in the world.” They already “own” the product and all it connotes.
Fierce loyalty in products such as Coca-Cola has embarrassed even its own makers when they tried to change it. In consumer blind tests, the Coca-Cola customers who were surveyed indicated that they preferred a “sweeter version” of Coke. The maker of Coke, therefore, introduced a new Coke and called the older one the “Classic Coke.” This resulted in a consumer “revolt.” The customers wanted to bring “the real thing” back. Decades of patriotic American identification with Coke challenged the modern-day taste test. In a way, the ads on “the real thing” backfired on the Coke makers when they introduced “the fake thing.” In this instance, perception has indeed become greater than reality.
Opportunities abound in shaping consumer perceptions or occupying spaces in their minds or places in their hearts which have not yet been filled. Before, there was just a Colgate toothpaste, which had become a generic brand. Then there came Close-up to win that space in the mind called intimacy and up-close interaction among socially-active consumers. Then came Aim, a toothpaste for kids. Nowadays, it is very hard
