Product Behavior

I bought a digital SLR about a year ago, and I love it. My previous SLR was an early 80’s Nikon, so buying the DSLR meant getting not only the ability to take several hundred pictures without needing to change the film, but auto-focus and stuff like that. I already have a pocket-sized digital camera for everyday snapshots, but I use the SLR for “real” pictures - portraits of kids, arty expression, etc. It’s great. But something happened when cameras when digital: they became computers. My camera is a low-end model, and although I love it, I’m feeling a little jealous that it was superseded this week by a new model.

As I look forward to 2008, I’m very interested to see how the political candidates will market themselves once the primaries start, and pass, and we line up for the election in November. Political communication is pure marketing, for better or worse, and we get to see it in action in ways we usually don’t for other sorts of products, in a truly exaggerated form.

I’ve previously written about making products “approachable.” The ukulele is my favorite approachable product: it’s recognizable, it’s safe, and it’s direct. As a “culture product,” the uke instantly fits in with your crowd - it’s like the funny guy who shows up at the party. Even if you don’t want to hang out with him for an extended period, he’s fun to have around.

So what do we make of products that seem to be the opposite of approachable?

One issue I see with many clients is that it’s not always clear why to do consumer research. It seems like a good idea - if we’re making products for people, we ought to go out and meet some of them. They’ll tell us what they want, or we’ll see what problems they’re having. But the “magic” - the “design thinking” - how do we get that out of consumer research?