The Apple iPod, first released in 2001, had one of the most talked-about product introductions of the past decade. Many people have theories for why the iPod has been so successful (100 million units sold as of the end of March 2007).[51] Pundits point to such factors as Steve Jobs' brilliance, the power of the company's advertising, and the elegance of the product itself. While these elements are all important to the mix, the Apple's iPod success can be explained more simply. If you've followed the Tuned In journey from the opening chapters, we're sure you now know why the iPod has resonated so well with buyers. Apple tuned in! Professionals at Apple applied each of the six steps of the Tuned In Process to create and launch the resonator that is the iPod. As we've studied the iPod and other wildly successful products and services, we realize that for a true resonator to break out of the pack and achieve market-changing status, each one of the six steps of the Tuned In Process needs attention.
Before the iPod came along, portable digital music players were crammed with features and functions and buttons, and they sported software that was difficult to master. Apple CEO Steve Jobs, back at the helm of the company he cofounded, led a development effort focused on solving a problem in the market-place—the need for a portable digital music player that was easy to use.
The breakthrough iPod experience was about much more than "better" hardware. Since its launch through the time of this writing, here are things we've identified that Apple has done to contribute to the iPod becoming a resonator.
Apple applied its elegant design philosophy to everything— the portable unit itself, the look and feel of the interface, the simple ergonomics, and even the beautiful packaging.
The white "ear buds" served to create a cult-like status for iPod users, because everyone else's headsets and cables were black.
The simple functionality required little documentation to be included in the box.
The iPod was easy to learn how to use. The wheel-based interface is more intuitive than the buttons other players had at the time.
Apple launched a sister product, iTunes, to eliminate many of the obstacles to downloading and organizing digital music.
Apple forged partnerships with record labels and others in the music industry and launched the iTunes Store, where customers legally purchase copyrighted music for $0.99 per song.
The iTunes Store was later expanded to include audiobooks and radio stations as well as video, including movies and TV shows.
iTunes embraced "podcasts"—consumer-generated audio content that is syndicated to people's iPods (and computers). Later, "vodcasts" (video podcasts) and ring tones were also added.
The powerful idea used in iPod advertising was exceedingly simple: "1,000 Songs in Your Pocket."
The iPod TV commercials, which featured colorful shadows of people dancing to popular songs, became popular. In fact, millions of people choose to watch them on YouTube. A number of consumer-generated versions have been posted to You-Tube as well, driving the viral marketing effects of the advertising.
Even the sales experience is carefully designed to fit the company's image. Apple operates nearly two hundred retail stores that sport clean, sharp lines and plenty of stations for trying out the products.
In the business-to-business world, the company's trade show and exhibition booths display only the Apple logo—no distracting "messages."
Now, just six short years after its introduction, the iPod is one of the world's most popular consumer brands and enjoys 72 percent market share. We predict continued success as Apple's corporate culture makes a habit of being tuned in and developing products that resonate.
How successful would the iPod have been if Apple ignored any one of the steps of the Tuned In Process? Imagine, for instance, what would have happened if the company had not learned about the real problems buyers had accessing music and therefore had neglected to create the iTunes interface? Without the white ear buds, would the cult of the iPod have developed as rapidly?
As we reflect on the iPod and its success, we're reminded of two products that resonated with buyers but whose makers neglected one or more of the six steps in our process. In one case, the company built a product that resonated with one market, but the company missed other markets for lack of understanding buyer personas. In the other, the company was unable to establish connections with buyers because it focused on interruption-based advertising techniques.
The first example was the Segway two-wheeled electric transportation device. When it was launched in 2001, the Segway generated tremendous media attention. Much of the early buzz revolved around the idea that the Segway would replace cars; some commentators predicted that it would completely transform the way people live in cities. The Segway's early marketing was targeted at a "city dweller" buyer persona, but the product never seemed to catch on with this group, mainly because of the high price of $5,000 per unit. However, other buyer personas were happy to pay the $5,000 price and roughly 23,500 units sold through September 2006.[52] For example, Segways are used by airport personnel to move quickly and quietly inside large terminals, by police in some towns, and by tourists for sightseeing at popular destinations. Had it done buyer persona research, Segway Inc. could have saved itself time, money, and frustration.
The second was TiVo, a brand of digital video recorder (DVR) for recording television programs.[53] As you probably know, TiVo works much like a video-cassette recorder but records onto an internal hard drive. TiVo resonated with buyers because it allowed them easy control over when they could watch their favorite shows. In marketing the product, the company could have focused on that but didn't. Instead it tried drawing attention to all of TiVo's features, such as fast-forwarding through commercials. Buyers were confused, leaving word of mouth to supply the message the company should have been promoting—use TiVo and watching late-night talk shows in the morning becomes a snap, as does recording any show you want to see and viewing it when you want. Today, although TiVo has more than 4.2 million subscribers, the company has struggled to grow and become profitable, and in fact reported losses for fiscal 2005, 2006, and 2007. We wonder how much more successful TiVo would have been if they had created a powerful idea for the TiVo, an equivalent to the iPod's "1,000 Songs in Your Pocket."
Segway and TiVo are great examples of products that fell just short of being resonators because the companies behind them failed to execute one of our six steps. Sure, TiVo is now a verb synonymous with recording, but it has underperformed compared to what it could have been if the company had articulated the idea in a more powerful way. When organizations focus on the entire Tuned In Process and use it as the guiding principle of their businesses, they begin to build a corporate culture that fosters success. People at all levels of companies like Apple use tuned in language and think outside the organization first.
As the Segway and TiVo examples show, each step of the Tuned In Process is important and will help focus your company's attention on market problems and buyer personas instead of egotistical nonsense. In fact, once they have tuned in, many organizations think of the process as a permanent filter for analyzing opportunities and decisions, their ongoing guide to when to say "no."
When somebody in your company (even the boss) wants to build a new product or service, the Tuned In Process suggests questions to ask first. What problems does this product solve? For what buyer personas does it solve these problems? If the person with the idea has not done the research, use the Tuned In Process as a filter and say "no."
When an agency or media partner wants you to invest in an advertising or promotion initiative, the Tuned In Process helps you identify the powerful ideas that you need to articulate to buyers to help you develop authentic connections with them. If the proposed initiative doesn't fit, just say no. We know people who have used the Tuned In Process to help investors and board members understand why the company does not advertise in famous business magazines.
The Tuned In Process is also an important early part of annual budget planning, helping to identify where human and financial resources should be deployed—and where they should not be deployed!
Launching your resonator effectively requires that you choose a winning sales and distribution strategy. While a comprehensive look at sales and distribution is beyond the scope of this book, we do suggest that you consider the Tuned In Process when making these decisions. Before you make a final determination on sales and distribution, look at the market problems that your product solves and which buyer personas it solves them for. Oftentimes, tuned in organizations will identify alternatives to the supposedly tried-and-true sales and distribution strategies.
For many consumer product companies, mass retailers like Wal-Mart or Costco make up a coveted sales channel. But as we learned in Chapter 5, Nalgene bottles are sold only via the company's own Web site and in specialty retail stores.
Mark Batterson of National Community Church, whom we met in Chapter 7, chose to "distribute" church services in movie theaters instead of traditional church buildings.
At around the same time that it launched the iPod (2001), Apple began to build its own Apple stores in cities and shopping malls around the United States. The company now has nearly two hundred such locations where consumers can try out the latest products.
Unlike other rental car companies, which maintain physical offices staffed by attendees, Zipcar (from Chapter 3) unleashed its offering using an innovative Web-based membership system and card-activated vehicle access, eliminating the need for customers to visit an office.
As your organization practices the tuned in approach to doing business, everyone begins to live and breathe the concepts involved. Eventually, getting and staying tuned in become a part of the corporate culture, with staffers and management alike challenging the old ways of doing things. Even if your entire organization isn't completely tuned in, employees and departments can be. Employees who understand the tuned in philosophy know what market problems their organization solves, and so they learn to do what's right for buyers. Call it "tuned in customer service." We see it more often than you might think.
Recently, a colleague took his family of four on a Florida vacation via Southwest Airlines. As they approached the check-in counter, his two teenage daughters attempted to heft their jam-packed suitcases onto the scale. Grimacing and grunting, they asked for their dad's help.
As he no doubt feared, both girls' bags were significantly over the Southwest Airlines weight limit. For each ticketed customer, Southwest allows three checked pieces at no cost as long as each individual piece weighs fifty pounds or less. (There are also size restrictions.)[54]
"I'm sorry, your bags are over the limit," said the check-in agent. "You're going to have to pay an extra fee if you bring those bags as is." The clerk explained the overweight policy: bags weighing from 51 to 70 pounds are accepted for a charge of $25 per bag, and items weighing from 71 to 100 pounds are accepted for a charge of $50 per item. Any item weighing more than a hundred pounds must be shipped as air cargo. The girls' bags weighed in at around eighty pounds each.
So far, this story is no different from similar encounters that occur thousands of times a day at airport check-in counters all over the world. But Southwest isn't just any airline. Southwest is tuned in to its buyer personas and their problems. And the company is also keenly aware of the need to establish authentic connections with customers to drive word-of-mouth buzz about the company.
"You only have one bag each and we allow three per person," the counter agent continued. "How about this? I can sell you both Southwest Airlines duffel bags for $25 each, and you can transfer some of your belongings into them to get each bag below the weight limit."
Our colleague was amazed. He was prepared to pay $100 to Southwest Airlines to take the bags packed with excess weight. But instead he purchased two nifty Southwest Airlines duffel bags for half that amount and still got all of his girls' belongings to Florida.
"And now we carry those duffels on all of our trips," he says. "The Southwest Airlines logo is getting lots of mileage with our family."
Here's a company that not only cares about its customers, but also understands how to generate buzz. Our colleague says he's told this story dozens of times. He also says he's a loyal Southwest Airlines customer as a result.
Getting tuned in seems easy at first, until you realize that you need to change your habits. Hopefully, you're asking, "OK, but what do I need to do now?" Here are some important first steps that will help you get started. As you begin to live the tuned in culture, these things will become natural for you.
Get out of your office and talk with buyers about their unresolved problems.
Identify your buyer personas. In order to make them real for you and your colleagues, name each buyer persona, build a profile for each, and cut a representative photo from a magazine to represent them.
Define your distinctive competence. Make certain everyone on your team understands what it is.
Don't go to an internal meeting if you're only going to give your own opinion. Instead, be the person who goes to the meeting armed with data.
Always ask where "facts" come from, to disqualify mere opinions from your decision-making process.
Map your products and services on the Tuned-In Impact-Continuum. Build a plan to increase the impact.
Don't talk about what your product or service does. Tell customers which of their problems the product or service will solve.
Count the number of times you say "our" and "we" on your Web site. Write for your buyers by using "you "and "your" instead.
Remove corporate gobbledygook, such as mission statements, from your external communications.
Become a thought leader in your market and industry.
We've talked a great deal about how Apple used the Tuned In Process to make the iPod an incredible success. You might be tempted to think that achieving this sort of success is beyond your organization's abilities. But consider this: in 1993, before the introduction of the iPod, Apple (under its then chairman, John Scully) made a great noise about the release of the Newton MessagePad, a product that many within the company thought would reinvent personal computing.[55] On the heels of two huge successes (the Apple II and the Macintosh), the notion seemed plausible. With the hype and buzz that have become a hallmark of an Apple product launch, early Newton advertising proclaimed, "The astonishing new invention that has room for your whole world but fits in your pocket. It manages your days, your names, and your numbers. It sends faxes and replaces your pager. It makes writing readable. It can draw even if you can't. It talks to computers and printers. And what you don't know, there's a good chance it does." Wow. But what was the response? Well, in April 2007 Computerworld nominated the Apple Newton as one of the 21 biggest technology flops of all time. The product was not built to solve problems, and therefore it did not resonate with buyers. In 1993, Apple was tuned out and many people wondered if the company would survive at all.
Yet Apple would go on to introduce the iPod, a tuned in product if ever there was one. The company has been tremendously successful since then, with company stock soaring from about $8 a share in January 2001 (pre-iPod) to $180 as of this writing in October 2007. For Apple, the value of getting tuned in was a twenty-twofold increase in company stock price!
If a large public company the size of Apple can execute a complete turnaround and get tuned in, so can your organization. It doesn't matter if you're part of a big company or a small one. You could work for a nonprofit, a government agency, or as an independent consultant. Or you could be a political candidate, a member of a rock band, or the pastor of a church. The Tuned In Process applies to you. In the next and final chapter, we'll introduce you to several more tuned in people and the resonators they've created. We're absolutely convinced that any organization can replicate their success.
The best way to develop a product or service that truly resonates is to carry out each of the six steps in the Tuned In Process.
Each step is important for focusing the attention of your organization on market problems and buyer personas, not egotistical nonsense.
Sometimes a product that ought to resonate will fail to capture the attention of buyer personas because of a reliance on old-style "messaging" techniques that focus on product attributes rather than powerful ideas your buyers can relate to.
The Tuned In Process can be used as a filter to help you decide what initiatives to pursue and when to say no.
Unleashing your resonator requires that you consider the market problems your product solves and who it solves them for before you make a final determination about sales and distribution.
Oftentimes, tuned in organizations will identify alternatives to the supposedly tried-and-true sales and distribution strategies.
Getting and staying tuned in should become a part of your organizational culture. Employees who practice the tuned in philosophy understand what market problems their organization solves and learn to do what's right for buyers.
Any organization can create a resonator, including yours!