Kenna's Dilemma

Lesson 1: quantity v. quality
Marketers should focus on gaining expert qualitative opinions to test products instead of relying on huge quantities of data. An example of this is the New Coke fiasco. Coke based its decision to change the formula on millions of taste test results. As Gladwell mentions, these little snippets of information can be very misleading. If Coke had received input from expert taste testers such as Gail Vance Civille and Judy Heylmun, this mistake would not have happened. Kenna's dilemma also exemplifies this idea. Music experts and people who had an opportunity to watch Kenna in concert appreciated his music more than the online raters. When conducting research, marketers can get a little number happy and focus too much on quantitative results. They should weigh qualitative, expert opinions at least equally with their quantitative data. Theoretically, researching both quantitatively and qualitatively should eliminate further Coke disasters and ensure that truly talented individuals have successful careers. This lesson can be applied to our group project and research papers as well. When marketing backyard products to pre-teen boys, our group should use quantitative data for our initial research. Percentages and numbers can offer guidance for our project. Qualitative data, on the other hand, should lead to the final product. In my experience with talking to my 11-year-old brother, I have found that it is difficult to elicit any information from him. I can't even get the boy to tell me what he did at recess. Not only do boys his age have trouble talking to the opposite gender, but they are also uncomfortable around older people in general. Therefore, the quantitative information that we find in secondary sources may not provide honest insights from boys his age. Furthermore, tactics such as interviewing hundreds of kids his age, would not be beneficial to our research either. They would most likely just tell us what we want to hear so that we will stop bothering them. That is why we should use expert opinions from teachers or child psychologists to formulate insights about the 10-13 year old boy segment. Performing observations and coming up with judgments based on their interactions with friends will also help our group design an ideal backyard for our target market. In gathering insights for my paper, I will add qualitative methods to my research. Actually watching customers shop at Wal-Mart can indicate their preferences and tendencies for purchasing sustainable products. This additional research will be useful in determining the extent to which Wal-Mart listens to their customers.

Lesson 2: Gut feelings can be a better indicator of consumer preferences than the reasons behind these snap judgments.
The other lesson that captured my attention in this chapter was the idea that gut instincts are more aligned with expert opinions. The jam experiment was particularly interesting. I was surprised to find that more students identified the highest quality jam when there was no reasoning behind their decisions. I believe this is true because giving a reason often makes you second-guess your initial (and usually correct) answer. Ever since my very first multiple-choice test, my teacher’s helpful advice was to stick with your first answer. The jam experiment epitomizes this notion in a marketing context. Marketers should strive to satisfy this gut instinct feeling. As I’ve written in a previous post, most of my purchasing decisions are a result of my snap judgments. Very seldom do I contemplate and analyze my grocery decisions. Oftentimes the first tub of detergent or brand of granola that sticks out in the store is the item that I purchase. Marketers can make their products more intriguing, and thus, more purchasable through appealing package design. The first sense that we use to experience products is sight. If something is visually stimulating, than we are more likely to favor that product over a competing brand. In “Kenna’s Dilemma”, Gladwell used ice cream packaging to emphasize this point. More people are more attracted to the tub container than the square one. There may be scientific reasons for this preference, but marketers are more interested in consumers’ purchasing patterns than the reasons why in this case.