Product Behavior

Exactly where a product falls on the “Love It / Solves It” axes depends on what it means for a particular consumer to “love” a particular product, and on what it means for that product so “solve” a consumer’s problem. Any change to the product (and the way it is marketed) may move the product in any direction.

Characterizing what goes into a purchase decision is, I’m guessing, the most important thing a company can do. Why does anyone buy anything? There are lots of ways to talk about it, but the one I’m enjoying these days, I call the “Love It / Solve It” chart.

The idea is this: In order for me to buy a product, it must both solve my problem, to some extent, and I must love it, to some extent. Exactly how much a product must solve and how much I must love before I’ll by are related to each other along some curve. If a product is above and to-the-right of the curve, as the star is, I’ll by. Below the curve, and no dice.

A couple of times in the last week I’ve noticed a new product: Scott “Xtreme” Rags. They’re so new they’re not even on the Scott website, as far as I can tell. But I saw them at Home Depot last weekend, and when I peeked into a store undergoing renovation a few days later. It’s a product that seems aimed at the contractor market, and I think it’s a strange mash-up. It’s a product simultaneously of the lowest and the highest value.

Many products communicate like apes do: they tell me what to do next. Better to treat me like a person: give me the information I need to understand the job at hand and participate in getting it done.

I’ve written previously about using the idea of “hiring a product” as a way to think more broadly about the relationship between consumer and product. Here’s an example.