Views from the Hills by R. E. Stevens, GENESIS II (The Second Beginning) E-Mail views@aol.com

Confirm - Confirm - Confirm

To repeat myself once again, "People don't buy products, they buy expectations, end results, dreams, etc."  We should always be aware of what we are promising the consumer, either as a direct promise or an imputed one.  We must know the basis for which our consumers purchase and do not purchase our products.  Are our failures doe to the performance of our product or the communication of our promises?  Do we over promise or under perform?  Regardless, it is all about confirming.  Confirming what we have said.  Confirming what the consumer heard.  Confirming how well the product performs.  Not just under laboratory conditions but under real world conditions.  Much of our work centers around communication.  Communication can come about through words or visuals.

Consider the embarrassment of the James River Company in the example I wrote about in my August 4, 1997, Views,  where in their commercial they had three women sitting around a quilting frame and using knitting needles to quilt instead of sewing needles.  It was embarrassing and costly to correct.  It probably did not cost them any business.  However, it would have been so easy to avoid the problem had they spent as little as $100 confirming their message.  Actually I would have used a method called "In-Home Group discussions" and it may have cost $300 at most.

I have seen containers designed in print shops that were flawed.  Had the designers taken the time to take them into some stores and put them on the store shelves where they could judge the appearance in the same environment as the consumer, they would have saved themselves considerable money as well as time.

I remember working on a product that involved selling the consumer one quarter the usual amount of product at the same cost as the original.  We did a lot of designing and confirming.  We ended up with a radically shaped container for the category and instead of featuring weight, we featured "uses."  We also found we had to give re-assurance.  We did that through the words "Just one small scoopful."  It worked, but not without a lot of work, re-work and confirming.

Bottom Line:  Many mistakes can be avoided with a little work and a little cost.



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