Clayton Christensen who is Harvard Business School Professor of Business Administration shares a very interesting Marketing & Business Case study in his MBA course:
To increase the sales, the fast-food company built better features in terms of what it saw as the ideal product - In this case, they made the milkshakes even yummier after inquiring about their customer demographics’ taste buds.
But alas, milkshake sales did not improve.
The company then enlisted the help of one of Christensen’s fellow researchers, who approached the situation by trying to deduce the 'Job' that customers were 'Hiring' a milkshake to do i.e. the 'Pain-points' users were seeking to 'Solve' by buying the milkshake.
He personally interviewed all the customers and discovered that 40 percent of the milkshakes were purchased first thing in the morning, by commuters who ordered them to go.
“Most of them, it turned out, bought [the milkshake] to do a similar job,” he writes. “They faced a long, boring commute and needed something to keep that extra hand busy and to make the commute more interesting. And they faced constraints: They were in a hurry, they were wearing work clothes, and they had (at most) one free hand.”
The milkshake was hired in lieu of a bagel or doughnut because it was relatively tidy and appetite-quenching, and because trying to suck a thick liquid through a thin straw gave customers something to do with their boring commute.
Understanding the specific need of the user, the company then responded by creating a morning milkshake that was even thicker (to last through a long commute) and more interesting (with chunks of fruit) than its predecessor. The chain also responded to a separate job that customers needed milkshakes to do: serve as a special treat for young children - without making the parents wait a half hour as the children tried to work the milkshake through a straw. In that case, a different, thinner milkshake was in order.
and, the Sales increased!!!
Fast-food restaurant chain that wanted to improve its Milkshake Sales
To increase the sales, the fast-food company built better features in terms of what it saw as the ideal product - In this case, they made the milkshakes even yummier after inquiring about their customer demographics’ taste buds.
But alas, milkshake sales did not improve.
The company then enlisted the help of one of Christensen’s fellow researchers, who approached the situation by trying to deduce the 'Job' that customers were 'Hiring' a milkshake to do i.e. the 'Pain-points' users were seeking to 'Solve' by buying the milkshake.
He personally interviewed all the customers and discovered that 40 percent of the milkshakes were purchased first thing in the morning, by commuters who ordered them to go.
“Most of them, it turned out, bought [the milkshake] to do a similar job,” he writes. “They faced a long, boring commute and needed something to keep that extra hand busy and to make the commute more interesting. And they faced constraints: They were in a hurry, they were wearing work clothes, and they had (at most) one free hand.”
The milkshake was hired in lieu of a bagel or doughnut because it was relatively tidy and appetite-quenching, and because trying to suck a thick liquid through a thin straw gave customers something to do with their boring commute.
Understanding the specific need of the user, the company then responded by creating a morning milkshake that was even thicker (to last through a long commute) and more interesting (with chunks of fruit) than its predecessor. The chain also responded to a separate job that customers needed milkshakes to do: serve as a special treat for young children - without making the parents wait a half hour as the children tried to work the milkshake through a straw. In that case, a different, thinner milkshake was in order.
and, the Sales increased!!!
Clayton Christensen
Source:
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/clay-christensens-milkshake-marketing
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