Market orientation
Why are Corona beer and lime inseparable
Because of marker orientation
Orienting towards the market and the customers is free. It does not cost to think from the perspective of the customers. Yet, businesses ignore the first step to grow.
Nokia was once the number one mobile phone brand. It stopped tapping into what the customers wanted. Apple did the opposite. Nokia hired Tricia Wang, an ethnographer, to study mobile phone users. She suggested Nokia to focus on affordable smartphones. It did not.
She wrote, “ I concluded that Nokia needed to replace their current product development strategy from making expensive smartphones for elite users to affordable smartphones for low-income users. I reported my findings and recommendations to headquarters. But Nokia did not know what to do with my findings. They said my sample size of 100 was weak and small compared to their sample size of several million data points. In addition, they said that there weren’t any signs of my insights in their existing datasets.”
Yet, world’s biggest beer brand Corona did not ignore their customers. They discovered that beer lovers add lime to the beer. Customers had invented a ritual of squeezing lime into the bottle. Then, they pushed the lime wedge into the bottle. Corona used the ritual in the promotion. Customer centricity made Corona the number one beer brand.
Professor Deshpande had coined the phrase ‘customer centricity’. He listed four things, which made a brand or a business successful.
- Customer centricity, not product or technology ( Ola is product/ tech centric)
- Out compete other firms in terms of in-depth customer insights ( Amazon)
- Integrate branding with customer centricity (Hello Corona beer)
- Rewarding employees for customer focussed innovation (Zingerman’s)
I have worked with big and small brands on online brand awareness campaigns. Almost all small and independent businesses avoid going to customers. Instead, they wanted shiny websites, colourful social media updates, cool Instagram feeds, digital ads and money from investors. E-commerce businesses focus on sales. D2C brands focus on sales. Tech or fashion brands focus on product. If only they focus on customers: at the time of purchase, at the time of contusion and at the time of disposal; they would not fail.
It’s never too late to start the right thing. You can assess how customer-centric is your business by using MORTN scale. Answer ten questions on a scale of one to five, and add the score.
I will be happy to assess your business with you. Shoot me a mail at abhishek@shack.co.in
