Recording what people DO is much more valuable than asking them what they DID after it happened. Branded Utilities, services, mobile, are all recording devices and should be treated as such.
Clotaire Rapaille writes in his book, The Culture Code:
- “The only effective way to understand what people truly mean is to ignore what they say.”
This is not because people willingly set out to deceive you, but because:
- – The mind is to complex to understand (conscious/subconscious).
– We are to eager explain our actions (we always think there is a reason).
– And in Rapaille’s case, people simply reflect what they think other people want to hear, not what they personally mean.
So digital “recording devices” would work very well i this context, because they are not dependent on what people think they mean, but what is actually being done.
The first example I personally heard was by a car retailer in Huston, finding that the ratio of people choosing a red car when customizing cars online was nearly identical to the ratio purchasing red cars in store. This degree of accuracy was not to be replicated by any other form of research.
It has also been said that sites like Nike ID are not first and foremost online shopping malls for shoes, but consumer trend research by Nike.
In modern times many of the larger branded utilities do the same, Fiat eco:drive might be one of my favorites, tracking a drivers every decision and action
partner. The sexual partner’s own expectations and cheap viagra lack of contraindications and cost. The disadvantages of.
.
The point of all of this being that setting out to create branded utilities is just as much about giving the brand a recording device inside the situation where the important stuff is happening. A device recording high quality, great insight which is almost impossible to get any where else, and insight which we haven’t been able to reach previously.
