Sometimes your new market or new use for a product is not obvious. REEBOK…take note.

It is not every day you find a lead user in your own household. But here is our story. My fiancé recently broke her leg and is working through the various protocols for recovery. After four weeks, she found herself in a “boot” and able to start to put some weight on the affected leg. Trouble was, she found the height of the sole of the boot made her bad leg higher than the good leg. No one from the orthopedics office offered any advice covering this eventuality. We went shopping and after much trial and error, found that the Reebok ZIGTECH gives the height needed to match the “boot” and also gives a very stable base.

Lead users are where you find them… for more on lead user research and the concept of lead user, please see the writings of Eric von Hippel, his videos and his e-books are readily available to you when you Google him.

Life is a Rental

I was talking with my friend Wally about relationships and he mentioned to me the lack of a desire for long term commitment with people in his social circle. His comment got me to thinking about whether this is an emerging social value that marketing professionals need to acknowledge and deal with. Do we need to try harder to gain commitment or live within the concept of rental (or both)?

Why is Wally getting these vibes? Perhaps it is because people are losing the things that they built their long term relationships upon. They are losing their homes through foreclosure; 60% of marriages end in failure; retirement is in jeopardy; jobs and careers are out of control.

No wonder we live as renters rather than committed buyers. With renting comes less responsibility which we find easier to deal with when everything else is out of our control.

Marketers, I don’t believe renting is a desired state, but rather a coping mechanism. We still yearn to be committed, to be a part of something with others. But responsibility without control is also a strong and undesirable state.

Can you create a state of commitment while mitigating the responsibility for now?

Membership is a concept long used by not for profit organizations to convey a form of ownership and commitment without significant responsibility. The concept has served American Express very well for many years.

We can learn from the not for profit world…membership has a couple of important components with might be useful for marketers to work into their marketing efforts. First, members need some level of involvement…mere “checkbook” members (dues payers) are often not retained over time. Give members/customers a chance to get involved like the Pepsi Refresh Project.

Second, members want communications…but give the member/customer the ability to control the flow so they get the level they want. It’s easy in this internet era to provide a constant feed that feeds the interest of the customer.

The rental mentality is a reality of the times. It can also be a trap that moves us away from the value of relationships that is a vital underpinning of modern marketing. To maintain a relationship in business, perhaps we need a middle ground between ownership and rental…
Jh, December 7, 2010