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

Speed is Important, But it is the Balance of Speed and Thoroughness

All too often we are concerned with the speed in which we move an idea forward.  that concern is usually focused on reducing the time involved.  When i first came into the marketing business, it was not at all uncommon to take five or more years to develop a brand.  After all, consumer research at that time involved door-to-door research.  That meant it was almost impossible to get a project into the field and obtain results in less than six months.

As the time involved in the consumer research was shortened, there never seemed to be a thought given to the possibility that we were moving too fast.  For some of us, the consequence of moving too fast was never a consideration.  In hindsight, I saw many ideas destroyed because of speed.  I guess speed kills in more ways than one.

A friend once said that, "Once an idea is killed, its resurrection only occurs under a competitor's name."  How true.  management seldom gives endorsement to an idea on the second time around.

In one experience, we were instructed to get an institutional adult disposable brief on the market from scratch in two years.  We did as instructed but in 20 months.  A great effort on the part of many people, but there were some in the group that wanted to hold up the project.  They saw the at-home market as a greater opportunity.  Our design for the institutional brief was an over design for the at-home market.  We chose to move forward with the introduction of the institutionally designed product for both the retail market and the institutional market.  Our competition moved forward a couple of years later with a design more suitable for the at-home market.  We got our revised version for at-home use out almost a year after competition.  Our competitor now dominates the market.

In another case, we stumbled on an idea while trying to develop an automatic cutoff switch for our in-store video equipment.  We were working at the same time on a new "flip top" carton opening for Tide.  Just for fun, we created a small box containing a tape player and a photo cell that made it look like a small Tide box.  We hung it on the store shelf so that when a customer passed by the tape player, it would automatically click on and say, "Psst, psst, have you seen my new flip top carton?"  The videos of the consumers' reactions to the display were very positive.  The display attracted attention, was humorous, and was effective.  We had 30 made for a management test of effectiveness.  The results of the test showed that after a month, almost half of the players were damaged or destroyed.  The conclusion was that they were unacceptable.  Unfortunately no one sat down and asked why they were destroyed and what could be done to eliminate the destruction and still obtain the positives of the idea.  We thought that it was a nuisance for the stock clerks and we believed they destroyed them.  AFter the first failure, agreement to revisit the ideas was not given.

Speed works both ways, you can be too slow and also too fast, just like on expressways.  it's all in the balance that counts.  In the first case, we were initially too fast to the market and then too slow in the adjustment.  In the second case, we did not devote enough time to understanding the implications in the market.

Speed is important but so also is the quality of the work.


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