Lee at Headshift picks up on my entry on customer-centricity. He identifies another myth…
which is the idea that innovation and production is demand-driven. Why is it so hard to buy single or even double-blade razors in supermarkets? Not because consumers demanded 3 or 4 blades on their razors, I guess, but because the suppliers need to find new ways of maintaining revenues from their customer base, regardess of the waste of resources this creates.
I agree with Lee about the 4 bladed razor (which I think is becoming a bit of poster child for the absurdity of marketing). I’d also say that there’s nothing inherently wrong with innovation being supply driven; it’s the pretence that it’s consumer-driven that bugs me.
Healthy relationships have a dynamic exchange in which the “lead” can shift from one side to another. Ahh, and there’s the rub; because that very dynamism is what challenges the command-and-control fantasies of those who think that they control brands, and the agencies that flatter them.
