America’s Most Wanted
Product Wisdom
I think Komar and Melamid’s People’s Choice experiments are the perfect way to describe customer research. Let me explain.
From 1994 to 1997, artists Komar and Melamid hired polling companies to survey people across the world to find out what kind of art they wanted to see. Dubbed the People’s Choice Series, the artists ended up creating 30 works based entirely on user feedback.
The results (separated by country) can be found here. There is also a link to the survey results on the site. It’s very interesting to see how the countries differ! Anyway, here is America’s customer research based result:
America’s Most Wanted
Americans want to see realistic-looking paintings that feature outdoor scenes and wild animals.
The point is, these paintings kind of stink. In my opinion, this highlights some of the pitfalls of customer research. I personally have found that talking to customers often leaves me feeling more confused than before. It’s also very clear that people have a hard time thinking outside of the box, or imagining themselves using something completely new. People often want to maintain the status quo.
There is no way the People’s Choice Series could have produced something like The Persistence of Memory or Guernica.
So, in my opinion, if you make most of your product decisions based on customer feedback, your product might end up becoming the equivalent of America’s Most Wanted; everyone said they wanted it, but no one actually likes or uses it.
Entertaining thing to capture your interest
A lot of people ask me about what credit card they should get. I am by no means an expert, but it is something I try to stay knowledgeable about. Back in the day, I used to have the absolute worst card for my situation (Amex Blue Everyday Cash card). I had this card for years, and was completely naive to all the benefits I was missing out on. Since I wasn’t a Dad with 3 kids living in the suburbs, this card made no sense for me.
Today, you will see a lot of people with the Chase Sapphire Reserve. This card is really sweet. Well, it used to be really sweet. About a year ago, Chase was offering 100K bonus points when you signed up, which was huge. For me, this amounted to about $1,800 in travel credit. But this deal is gone, and now Chase is only offering the Sapphire Reserve to people at 50k bonus points (and even only 25k bonus points).
Amex Platinum is the new hotness. Amex was getting killed by the Sapphire Reserve, so they rolled this card out. This card is great, but you really want to get the 100K bonus (It does exist). The card also has a super high annual fee of $550, which is not as easy to meet as the Reserve. You are eligible for $400 of Uber and travel credit, which, if met, will bring the cost down to $150. This is what you end up paying for the Reserve as well. However, the Amex travel credit is for things like in-flight meals and airline change fees. These are not super common expenses, so you might find that you are forcing yourself to eat plane food just to get your credit (United’s gouda cheeseburger is actually really good).
Another interesting card to keep an eye on is Chase’s Freedom Unlimited. Right now they have a sign up offer for 3% back on all purchases for the first year. That’s pretty damn good!
