You can spend a lot of time and money making a product better and still give people no new reason to buy it. Looking back at my involvement in product development from the marketing side of consumer goods, three questions stand out.
In consumer goods, we're good at finding ways to improve products. Better ingredients, improved performance, updated packaging. There's almost always something we can try to make better.
But does anyone actually care?
Here's where decision-making gets lost.
A product is due for an update. There's a sales forecast to hit. Everyone is in the thick of it, getting busy making it "better" but forgetting to ask what consumer behaviour they're trying to influence.
I led marketing for a dive bag brand. Our bags had a reputation for surviving abuse, so every product cycle we made them tougher. Heavier fabric, a better wheel housing, another pocket. Each one was a real improvement, and the team could prove it.
Then you stand in a dive shop and watch someone pick the bag up. They're not comparing fabric. They want to know if it fits in the overhead, whether their regulator survives the flight, and whether the bag is still in one piece after a week on a boat.
We'd spent nine months and most of the tooling budget making the bag better at something the customer already assumed. The two things they'd have paid more for—the whole kit packing into carry-on size, and a wet compartment that actually keeps the dry side dry—sat further down the list.
We launched at a higher price and spent the season explaining why.
The bag got better. The reason to buy it didn't.
Does the tougher fabric matter? Maybe. Will they even notice it? Who knows (Marketing, please stand up).
And even if they do notice, does it make them more likely to buy again, pay a little more for it, or choose it over another brand?
Here’s what you should be thinking about: There's a difference between improving a product, improving something consumers actually value, and improving something enough to change their behaviour.
Now, I'm not suggesting every product investment needs to win over new customers. Some improvements are about customer retention, lowering costs, or simply being competitive. All perfectly legitimate reasons to invest.
But when we start talking about innovation driving growth or creating differentiation, we need to be clear about what consumer behaviour we're expecting to change.
So before the next “objectively better” product gets a budget, ask yourself three questions:
- Will consumers notice it?
- Will they pay for it?
- Will it change what they do?
And one more: is this for growth, retention, or keeping up? Those are different strategic decisions.
Otherwise, we might end up with a genuinely better product that nobody has a particularly good reason to buy, or to keep buying.
Which, when you think about it, is a pretty expensive way to make a better bag.
That’s the conversation I have when I talk to clients about strategy: deciding where you’ll be different and funding what serves that strategy and the behaviours we intend to influence along the way.
Reach out to me. Always happy to talk strategy, or bags. I have opinions on both.
