Kenna's Dilemma

The most important thing that I learned from the “Kenna’s Dilemma” chapter was the relevance of context in gaining customer insights. I thought it was very interesting how the results of the taste test did not necessarily provide Coca-Cola with the answer to why they were losing market share, especially because most would assume that taste is the most important aspect of the beverage industry.

When testing a product, it is imperative to consider the environment in which the test is given. In the case of Coca-Cola, they found that consumers preferred Pepsi in a sip test. So when Coca-Cola tweaked their formula to taste more like Pepsi, they were simply responding to the findings of the taste test; in essence, they thought they were giving consumers what they wanted. However, the problem was that customers rely on more than the taste factor when buying soda. According to Gladwell, “we transfer to our sensation of the Coca-Cola taste all of the unconscious associations we have of the brand, the image, the can, and even the mistakable red of the logo.” Coca-Cola assumed their loss in market share had to be attributed to taste, when, in fact, the problem was brand imagery. They should have realized that, while a blind sip test seemed like an unbiased method, it was not the usual context in which Coca-Cola was consumed.

While it may sometimes be difficult or impossible, simulating the environment of use when testing a product is the only way to guarantee the results. Gladwell warns against letting “the guys in the white lab coats take over,” which also had a negative impact in Kenna’s case.

I think this is a dilemma that consumers can potentially face every time they shop. When I try on a pair of shoes, a couple of walks down the length of the aisle are usually not enough to determine the level of comfort and stability the shoes will provide during a long day of walking around campus. Every year around Christmastime, I go to Sephora to pick out a new bottle of perfume. After a few disappointing purchases, I now ask for a sample size of three or four scents and try them out over the next week before buying an entire bottle. Like the Coca-Cola taste test, a perfume that smells great after one spray in the store may not be what I want to smell like every single day.

Another concept I related to was the perception of “new” as “bad.” The Aeron chair was a great example of this phenomenon. Customers initially gave the Aeron bad ratings because it was not aesthetically pleasing. To them, “the word ‘ugly’ was just a proxy for ‘different,’” forgetting that comfort is the driving force behind a great chair, not necessarily its design.

In market tests, the testers were not actually purchasing the chair. I think this had an effect on their perception of the Aeron. If they were really in the market for a durable chair, would its appearance have such a significant impact on their purchase decision? If your goal was to buy the best chair possible, you would choose the one that was least likely to cause back problems, the one that provided the best support and greatest level of comfort.

Clearly, those that rated the Aeron, as well as All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, really could not overcome the initial newness factor to really evaluate the product. After the Aeron began to achieve high sales volume, customers’ perception of its aestheticism skyrocketed. Those two TV shows are now remembered as classic programs that continue to have cultural relevance today.

I guess market research is not always a good indicator of what will actually happen when the product hits the market place. I think this is similar to the Halo Effect, where a customer’s “yes” to “would you buy this product?” does not always translate into an actual purchase decision. No matter what precautions a company takes to make sure their results are as “accurate” as possible, there does not seem to be a way to actually perform market research in a way to generate perfect solutions.