Saturday, March 31, 2007

A powerful thought when creating something new

Here's an interesting thought to ponder when trying to create something new, oh like maybe a creative community of extraordinarily talented people.

It is only when marketing theory offers a plausible statement of causality, and is built upon circumstance-based categorization (segmentation) schemes that managers can confidently assert what features, functions and positioning will cause customers to buy a product.

Companies that target their products at the circumstances in which customers find themselves, rather than at the customers themselves, are those that can launch predictably successful products. Put another way, the critical unit of analysis is the circumstance and not the customer.

Clayton Christensen, The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is interesting and something to consider. I'd like to take a creative stab and making the definition more user friendly however. ;)

Unknown said...

The same thing (I think) is said in The Long Tail when discussing how Google's success lies in how it gauges the winds and hoists their sails rather than trying to change the wind's direction.

j said...

sounds like the old marketing/sales saying - "don't sell a product, sell a solution to a problem"