New Thinking about Consumer Marketing

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For example, Procter & Gamble (PG) has turned Pampers from simply diapers to a full-fledged motherhood resource. P&G begins by finding women who are pregnant or thinking of becoming pregnant and stays involved in their lives with a wide range of products and services throughout the first few years of the baby's life. And as their families grow, these moms start their journey with P&G again.

Your competition isn't who you think it is. Remember, customers want solutions, and the cast of companies that can help fill those needs extend beyond your direct competitors. Take the local spa. Customers ultimately go to the spa to fill a need for relaxation. But vendors that can provide relaxation aren't limited to other spas within a 5-mile radius. Customers might relax by spending an afternoon at the bookstore or a quiet morning at the local coffee shop, or by going to have acupuncture or to the gym for a workout.

Companies that see their competition from this broader viewpoint will find new ways to stay relevant. The additional context helps companies imagine more comprehensive solutions. Partnerships are a great way to get the bigger picture. Nike (NKE) and Apple's (AAPL) iPod, and W Hotels (HOT) and Bliss spas are two team-ups that deserve accolades for mastering this principle.

Customers are part of a collective. The information revolution has connected people in powerful ways; it's never been easier for customers to find the opinions of others to validate their product and service choices. A colleague recently underscored this point through a story of shopping with his teenage daughter for her prom dress. In each new outfit, she snapped and sent pictures of herself with her iPhone, asking for feedback from her Facebook friends, and getting it in real time. He was amazed by this new decision-making behavior.

So now that you've been reminded of these ideas, what's next? Don't leave things up to marketing—it takes a serious cross-functional effort to turn people into customers and then keep them coming back. It takes that same comprehensive effort to transform individual products or services into winning solutions. In other words, think the hole, not the drill.

Jeneanne Rae is co-founder and president of Peer Insight, a consulting firm focused on innovation and customer-experience design for Standard & Poor's 500-stock index firms. She has worked in the field for over 18 years, consulting and educating dozens of leading companies in a number of industries. In 2005, BusinessWeek named Rae one of its "Leaders of the Year." Peer Insight Vice-President Katie Waterson assisted with this column.

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