I read an interview with Drayton Bird in Februarys issue of Research Magazine headlined Direct Speech. I was immediately struck by the glaring contradiction in Drayton Birds comments that bedevils the thinking of most large companies.
On the one hand he argues that he doesnt want market research to come and tell him what people think because – people dont bloody well know what they think themselves. He quotes Henry Fords famous remark – ‘If I’d asked the public they would have said they wanted a faster horse’. On the other hand he goes on to say the biggest mistake Marketers, R&D people and Directors can make is not to talk to their customers you should not forget, he muses, that it is your customers who put you there. Yet it is not surprising that Marketers, R&D people and Directors make this mistake when they are being told by their agencies and advisors (like Drayton) that customers dont really know what they want and that brand owners know best.
To think of your customers in this way, in the world of web 2.0, and the empowered consumer is both arrogant and dangerous. Such an outdated view conditions a corporate mindset of not listening and if you are not going to listen to your customers, then you are certainly not going to act on anything they tell you. And to do this today, at a time when your customers no longer see themselves as passive respondents but active equals in their relationship with you is even worse. Todays consumer has a much stronger belief not just in their own voice but in their own creativity, ideas and self expression.
Companies need to decide where they stand on this debate. Do they trust their customers? Do they have a corporate mindset that says the customer is always right? Or do they think they know best and their customers do not really know what it is they want, so they need to be told. I know where I stand, on the side of the customer and if you embrace their ideas and creativity in a meaningful way you can start to imagine together what the future could look like. That is how real brand value will be created in the decades ahead.
