Conversation

I think the two situations in which "customer obsession" is a meaningful corporate value are: a) life or death matters are involved b) you see enough sides of a customer's life that the internal model is not a one-product cartoon (ie all the broad tech platforms)
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For the latter, two ways to test if your business qualifies. You might either sell so many things "share of wallet" is the best metric (Amazon, Walmart) OR you touch such a broad swathe of the information the customer consumes you can shape their mind (Facebook, Twitter)
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If you sell only one non-life-or-death product or service, chances that your customer's whole-life holistic identity is coupled to consuming your product is zero. There is no point being obsessed with a narrow aspect of someone's life that they themselves are not.
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There is something weird about the v-commerce/DTC world, in that they seem to unironically think customer identities are shaped by a single product (t-shirt, razors, shorts, luggage, backpacks, water bottles)... this is a mistake old-school marketing never made.
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When you see ads for (for eg) coca-cola or pringles, it is clear that the marketers understand this isn't your life, it's a snack. The lifestyle narratives presented in commercials has a subtext of cheerful irony/absurdity. This is missing in DTC ads I see on Facebook.
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Very few products in traditional marketing unironically positioned themselves as identitycore products. Cars perhaps. Education (college). Healthcare and insurance products.
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