Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce | Video on TED.com http://bit.ly/9K6Amd
A great video on how testing uncovered hidden diversity that 20 to 30 years of asking questions didn’t and led to the creation of extra-chunky spaghetti sauce.
Another interesting example from the video- creating one coffee roast for a group would test an average of 60/100. Segmenting the group into 4 and creating their ideal coffee would test an average of 75 or 78/100.
The practical result?
According to Gladwell, “the difference between coffee that makes you wince, and coffee that makes you deliriously happy”. The same process taking into account diversity led to a product that was fantastic compared to a product that was bland and distasteful.
Bottom line- seeking universal principles can give you something no one cares for and severely undermines opportunities for success. Testing and segmentation provide the means for radically improving your performance.
This has been well proven in all kinds of business, where even slight change in operating model can segment a market quickly by making one segment happier. However, much of this segmentation happens by chance as vendors evolve accidentally in different directions.
Product marketing and marketing, if they can harness this principle, can also shift buyer responses from wincing to deliriously happy.
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