Designing Product Attributes
Finding your qualifying and differentiating attributes
I walked into a friend’s office recently to find him deep in thought. He was reflecting on where is company is today and where to take it. Together we tried to look at his company using the strategy canvas from Blue Ocean Strategy. But as the author’s mention themselves in this (very readable) article, drawing the canvas and identifying the key factors from competition is not easy.
So here is an attempt to do exactly that. Think of this as the step before you arrive at the strategy canvas.
Design-Led Startups
The central theme holding all the posts in this publication together is the idea of startup by design — the thesis that a design-led approach to entrepreneurship coupled with the lean startup approach, delivers better results than the lean startup approach alone. Think of it as the yin to lean startup’s yang.
Startup Central
This and all other posts are written from the perspective of making it useful to startups. These posts apply equally to large companies, but it keeps me grounded to think in terms of startups. There is very little space for ambiguity.
Diving In
Ok, lets get to it.
The central problem is that its unclear how to arrive at the competitive factors for your business. If we determine an approach — problem solved. We could then go about creating the value curves and analysing what to change.
Simplify
First though, let’s simplify the language a little bit so its easier to discuss.
Think in attributes and offerings rather than factors and products.
Attributes and offerings are humanistic, factors and products are mechanistic. Establishing this mindset is subtle, yet important — we think clearer when we think in human terms.
Attributes
Humans compress detail since we can’t hold much in our working memory. We do this by reducing our experiences to attributes. If you’ve just met someone, you’ll walk away with a full body experience. By the time you share the experience with your best friend you’ll reduce the experience to a few key attributes: warm, funny, well dressed.
We do this for all experiences : products (think Nest) , services (think Uber) , companies ( think Apple).
Every experience gets reduced to a few core attributes.
It then makes sense to start by designing for these attributes rather than leaving them to chance.If she’s going to reduce me to attributes , I want them to be the attributes I intended.
It doesn’t quite matter if you’re a startup or a large company. When you’re small your customer experiences your attributes through your one offering. As you become larger and have many products, you embed these attributes into your brand. This is a mechanism to ensure all your products inherit these attributes. Your brand is a promise to your customer to keep the attributes that first made you successful alive.
One for Head, One for the Heart
Being human, we respond to two kinds of attributes — attributes for the head and attributes for the heart. Together they form a person-ality. Here’s how to think about them :
Qualifying attributes are those aspects of your offering which attract the mind of your consumer.
She pays attention. It’s like going to a black tie ball. It’s expected you dress a certain way, and behave a certain way. Any less no one pays attention to you. You learn about this by looking at what everyone else is wearing an doing. It works the other way too — others can learn about this by looking at you.
Differentiating attributes are those aspects of your offering which engage the heart of your consumer.
She is touched by and engages with your offering. If you were going to that ball it would be your charisma, confidence, ability to dance. Qualifying will get you into the ball, but if you want to be remembered, you will need to differentiate. You learn about this by discovering what you’re really good at any playing that up. This is harder to imitate. In summary :
Qualifying attributes engages her mind, differentiating attributes evokes her feelings.
Back to Business
Ok — enough of that. Lets see how that translates to business.
Here’s how.
Qualifying attributes are the Better, Faster, Cheaper attributes of your offering. Put another way, if your offering is making an existing offering better, faster or cheaper, you do get the attention of your consumer. But its easy for another player to come along and do the same.
Attention is not loyalty.
Differentiating attributes are those attributes which affect the experience of your offering seen from your customer’s point of view. This changes based on whether you are making a product or service. For example if your offering is a product — physical or digital — its the design of the product that is most responsible for evoking feelings in your consumer.
If your offering is a service — there are specific moments in the entire experience — moments of mediation which are most responsible for evoking feelings in your customer. This is naturally harder to create and by the same token harder to imitate.
Feelings lead to loyalty.
The question to ask is : which aspects of my offering are most responsible for evoking feelings in my customer ?
You can differentiate unintentionally, and probably are. But its more powerful to differentiate intentionally.
Lets take an example.
I’ll be taking example of products across a range. Some companies are small, other large. The approach applies equally for a startup or a large company.
Clothes :
Let’s say you’re Zara. You’re entering the market late. It’s a ruthless, low margin business with fickle customer tastes, enormous advertising budgets, carefully cultivate imagery and depressing end of season markdowns. You want to compete and differentiate in this market.
How might Zara have done this ?
Zara qualifies — remember qualifying attributes get the attention of your consumer — by making their clothes in styles similar to those available in similar high street stores, not much better, but dramatically cheaper than those of competing firms. This naturally got the attention of fashion conscious clientele.
They then spend a great deal of time and energy making it faster. Blindingly faster. Their entire supply chain down to the location of their factory is designed to get new designs to stores around the world in three weeks. There’s even a term for it — fast fashion. Think of “ Fast Fashion” as a specification of the “Faster” qualifying attribute.
So far this is something that is possible for another competitor, starting from scratch to imitate. And if it does, customers will respond to the new brand with just as much enthusiasm.
Zara differentiates — remember differentiating attributes engages the feelings of your consumer — by the design of their clothing. Built on the foundation of fast fashion this means design works fast too. Micro trends picked up by its sales staff speaking to customers across the world are funnelled back to its team of designers daily. They then quickly develop new designs and send them back to stores in weeks, in small batches across the world. In effect, its a viral system.
This system makes it possible for a teenager in Istanbul wear fashion that’s current in New York, and vice versa — making them feel current. This is harder to replicate and leads to customer loyalty.
Read the full story here
Soaps
In case you don’t know about Lush — briefly company started in 1994 in Poole, Dorset, UK. Founders Mark and Mo Constantine started mixing potions for Anita and Gordon Roddick and became a supplier to BodyShop in the 1970's. They’ve received the OBE in December 2010 for their services to the beauty industry. Read more here
Let’s say you’re Lush. You’re a startup and you’re entering soaps.The market is dominated by big players, high volumes, low margins, huge advertising budgets and distribution networks. How might Lush have done this ?
Lush qualifies — on quality. They specify quality as being 100% vegetarian, drawn from sustainable sources with high quality potent ingredients.
And this is palpable when you visit a Lush store. It’s impossible for me to walk by without stopping to take a deep breath.However, this is something that is possible for another competitor, to imitate.
Lush differentiates — by the design of their store experience. They specify the design as fresh, handmade, personal and tactile. Let’s break each one down :
- Fresh : Walking into the store is like walking into a bakery. You can touch, feel and smell everything. Stores do not sell products older thab four or five months. This is very hard for large companies to do.
- Handmade : Everything there is handmade — the opposite of the machine stamped soaps we’re used to. Every piece there has character and uniqueness. This is very hard for large companies to do.
- Personal : They make the effort to show the human behind the labour. Every batch has a small caricature of the creator and his message. This is very hard to do if you’re a mass producer
- Tactile : You can touch and try everything. When you find what you like, the sales clerk carves out the amount you want and hands it over. Rough, tactile, delicious. This is possible for large companies to do. As you see:
Attributes, once specified become directives around which the company can organise itself. It creates a direct link to action.
The overall effect of the store experience is a feeling refreshed and usually salivating. I have stepped in several times simply to take in the aroma.
Disclaimer: I do not have any affiliation with Lush. Just admiration.
Computers
One final example : Apple.
Apple qualifies — on quality. They specify quality as “No Compromises”.
You’ll notice something here — these are value Steve Jobs embodied himself.
This tells you where these attributes come from — your own values. This is especially true in the case of differentiating attributes. Apple actively does not qualify on price.
Apple differentiates — by the design of their products. They specify design as minimalist and seamless integration. Let’s break it down :
- Minimalist : Its a value the Steve Jobs himself held dear. The design sensibility is his own personal preference, without apology. There is something beautiful about being yourself, without apology.
- Seamless Integration : It’s again Steve Job’s own value, specifically his desire to control every aspect of the experience. It makes itself felt in many ways — hardware and software are integrated seamlessly. They make their own processesors. Your devices are integrated/connected to each other seamlessly.
Differentiating attributes are extremely hard to get right, and therefore very hard to imitate.
Because its so hard, it is only sustained by the most powerful fuel their is — your own values. To build it like this, you have to believe it. That’s your core,
Back to the Ocean.
So this shows you how you can look at your offering : product or service — though I haven’t shown an example of a service yet — and how to arrive at the attributes that matter.
From here you simply place your specified attributes — i.e. directive — onto a strategy canvas and you’re off and running. With this difference —
Your canvas now has two spaces. The Red Ocean and Blue Ocean. Put your qualifying attributes -fully specified in the red space and your differentiating attributes — fully specified in the blue space.
This gives you a good place to start looking at your business — startup or large business.
The Red Ocean space is suitable to comparison — seeing what’s out there and determining what you want to qualify on.
The Blue Ocean space is suitable for introspection — exploring what are your values, what truly makes you different and how you can embody them in your offerings.
For the final level of specificity, add where the directive is currently in action. For example if minimalism is your differentiating directive — listing the major software releases where it applies — Mac OS X and iOS in case of Apple — immediately makes the level of adherence of each release to the directive obvious. The move from skeuomorhpic to flat can be easily explained by this. It just didn’t fit with Apple’s differentiating attributes.
Comparing Canvases
Admittedly this canvas reads a little different from the strategy canvas here. For one it limits the number of elements you deal with. Second it keeps the locus of influence with you — which attributes do you think you can qualify on ? which attributes do you believe you can differentiate on ? I find this encouraging — I can start with what others are doing to qualify, but once I know what’s special about me I can differentiate.
The mysterious number 3
There’s another curious insight. The mysterious number 3 :
All companies work with a maximum of three attributes at any point in time
As a corollary, they distribute their attributes in the proportion of 2 : 1 — two qualifying attributes and one differentiating attribute. This then is what you’re aiming for if you are starting from scratch. Find your qualifiers and then step up on this foundation to find your differentiators.
Finally a word in price. This is the cheaper part of the better, faster, cheaper triad. Price is a peculiar attribute. It’s a hot button. Reducing prices almost certainly starts a price war. Increasing prices suggests exclusivity. Price is really a proxy attribute. By this I mean that companies rarely qualify or differentiate on price. What they are qualifying on are other attributes that either make a lower price possible — Xiaomi for example, does it on its internal efficiencies, or differentiating on quality in order to justify a higher price — Apple for example.
In Summary :
- Think of your offering as attributes
- There are two kinds of attributes : qualifying and differentiating
- Qualifying attributes attract the mind your customer. Faster, better, cheaper variety qualifies.
- Differentiating attributes attract the feelings of your customer. Design and experience differentiate.
- Qualifying attributes are the foundation for differentiation.
- Specify your attributes. Once specified use them as directives within your organisation to trigger action ( with a little translation )
- Arrange your specified attributes on your strategy canvas into two spaces. Red ocean on your left, Blue ocean on your right. You can now go about mapping the value curves to see how you do compared to your competitors. This informs what you need to change in the red ocean. To move to the blue ocean however, you have to go where your value direct you and stay on that path.
Stirring up the waters
In a later post I’ll go into how to discover your values — we’ve had interesting results from the workshops we’ve run. For the next post, however, I’d like to explain how Qualifying and Differentiating attributes interact. The dotted is line between them is just that. Once you’ve established your qualifying and differentiating attributes and exposed them to the competition, you’ve set a machine in motion. I’ll illustrate using the example of two mobile phone companies : Samsung and Xiaomi.
Thanks for reading ! If you enjoyed it, do recommend it.
