( 5 reviews )
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Posted: May 8 2006
The cool, conventional wisdom says that to succeed in business these days means you have to innovate and think "outside the box". Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan beg to differ in the book Simply Better: Winning and Keeping Customers by Delivering What Matters Most. Often it's just executing the basics better than everyone else... Contents: Differentiation That Matters; How Customers Really See Your Brand; Identifying Generic Category Benefits; Challenges of Innovating to Drive the Market; Caution - Inside-the-Box Advertising Doesn't Work; Customer-Focused Mind-Set; How to Be Simply Better; Notes; Index; About the Authors Many of today's business books offer programs and plans on how to deliver unique innovation, making your product unique from all others. But most consumers are looking for a blend of things when they buy a product, and your "unique selling proposition" may be something that doesn't even matter to them. The example of a fax machine being marketed as having the "smallest footprint" is one where the company thought it was great, and the consumer doesn't care. The alternative is to understand the generic category benefits that your product delivers, and then strive to deliver them better and more memorably than anyone else. Consistent, high-quality product and delivery matched with brand recognition means that when available, consumers will associate quality with your product and will take the path of least resistance when it comes to repeat purchases in that category. There are plenty of examples of this scattered throughout the book... Crest vs. Colgate, Proctor & Gamble, and Target vs. Wal-Mart, just to name a few. Simply Better presents the perfect counterpoint to creating chaos and disruption, thinking that you know better what the consumer wants and needs... If you're failing at the basics, then innovation won't offer any panacea or escape. Simply Better will help you to figure out how to solidify your core market and deliver value by being better than everyone else at the things that do matter...
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( 1 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Sep 1 2005
Messrs Barwise and Meehan have really succeeded in creating a business book that you actually want to read. Their simple idea is explained, illustrated and elucidated with clarity and without the usual repetition and sycophancy which authors of business books use to puff out their oftern half-baked theories. Like all things good and simple, this book organises and articulates things that you should already know - read it with a marker pen and you will find yourself regularly stealing bits to help communicate and simplify ideas that corporate life has complicated beyond comprehension.
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( 6 of 9 found this review helpful ) Posted: Nov 16 2004
I do not agree at all with all the five star ratings that the book was given on this page. This book is a mediocre book at best with no sound theoretical or practical advice to anyone practicing marketing. What the authors basically say is this: differentiation is a fancy thing; you should first be aiming at providing the basics for the customer. Those who can provide all those basics, which they call something like 'overall category benefits' will arguably conquer the customers' hearts (and arguably wallets). On the practical side, I am sure the writers did not see a lot of customers in their lives as suppliers of any merchandise. Provide the customers with all the category benefits, you will en up with the question: how much the price? Give it free to the customer with all the customer benefits, you will face the quetion: do you provide free delivery? This is not a way to approach marketing. This is advocating commoditization. In reality, you should design your offering in such a way that your target segment will have nearly no choice but purchasing from you. And this is differentiation. The rest is an obvious British academic drive: publish something novel or perish. But the idea of providing TOTAL basic category benefits is not only an old idea but in today's market place a very dangerous one too. If you want to go bust, provide the customer with all they need and ask for and forget about profits and capital accumulation. God will love you. I did not like the book at all. For those who may like to pursue this subject further, I reccommend the great work by Fred Crawford and Ryan Mathewsy called "The Myth of Excellence". What they say in this wonderful book is that you do NOT need to be very good in all aspects of so-called "category benefits". The authors base their work not on circumstantial evidence as in Simply Better, but some sound research and provide "conclusive evidence of the futility of trying to be excellent in all aspects of a commercial transaction-price, product, access, experience, and service. Instead, the strategy for your products and services should be to dominate on one element, differentiate on a second, and be at industry par (i.e., average) on the rest". And they go on saying that so long as you are number one on one particular 'category benefit', then it is perfectly okay to be average on others as long as your customers know specifically where and how you are superior and world-class. So, good luck to you if you decide to pursue the advice given in Simply Better and simply prepare yourself for not so good financial outcomes for your company. Because trying to be the best on all category benefits means to be mediocre in your category.
