Departing from convention: If marketing research had it’s way….
Analysis paralysis is a reality. There is a famous saying by Akio Morita, the founder of Sony – “ The greatest assistance I had in building my company was the total failure of nerve on the parts of Western businessmen to move without research”. Sony went on to become one of the most iconic brands achieving global dominance.
Another legendary business Richard Branson has a similar attitude. He says at Virgin they continue to explore a lot of things. And if something excites them, they go ahead and try it. Understandably, a lot of them are failures. But about 20% of what they try out is a massive success. And obviously they had no clue before they ventured into doing it, which amongst the things was going to be the super successful one. So, they try them all. Because if they tried to avoid having the failures,they wouldn’t have the successes.
And probably the Big Daddy of them all Steve Jobs, had a similar view. He didn’t believe in research. He said, ‘ It’s not the public’s job to know what they are going to want. It’s my job to know what they are going to want’. This approach helped Apple become the apple of millions of consumer eyes.
It’s not about the logical West or the superstitious East. Business and brand success can be attributed to ‘ predatory thinking ‘ where myths are busted, convention is disrupted and logic is questioned’. In the process competition is outwitted. If you want to be a game changer, don’t look elsewhere,begin by trying to be the game itself! There are enough examples(some of them shared above), that can and should inspire us.
Image Courtsey: research-methodology.net
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