Читать книгу Blind Spot - Nathan Shedroff - Страница 11

Functional value is usually easy to quantify. Anytime a company stresses a particular feature of its offering (or how many there are), or the performance of the product or service as a whole, it is communicating about functional value. This is the first consideration customers usually make, and it’s a great differentiator—unless some other company offers a slightly better feature or just one more. Functional value is usually easy to communicate, but it almost never engenders loyalty because it’s the shallowest kind of value that can be provided to someone.

Financial value is the second kind, and it’s a little more involved, creating a slightly deeper connection between a customer and a company (though not by much). When the number of choices is narrowed by various options, consumers turn to issues of money: how much are buyers really willing to spend for certain function or performance? Everyone has a different answer, which is why there are so many options for cars, computers, types of hand soap, and everything in between—at all price levels.

Because they’re easy to measure quantitatively, both functional and financial values are pretty easy to see and understand. Either a product or service has the function a consumer wants or not. Either it’s within a set budget or not. Most see the process of deciding what to buy or use as rational. These types of value, because they’re quantifiable and, in a sense, visible—since they operate at a material level—are the least significant for consumers and provide the least sustainable source of differentiation for companies. They’re about as basic as value gets, so buyers refer to them as, well…basic.

The other three forms of value are entirely different, however. This makes them complicated and difficult to work with. Ironically, these forms of value are just where the greatest opportunities to differentiate in the market reside. They’re also the most important source of stock valuation. Havas Media, for instance, has determined that companies that consistently offer these types of value are, on average, valued significantly higher by the markets. Because of this, and because they offer so much greater benefits to customers, which leads to sustainable competitive advantage, these are thought of as the source of premium value.

The third kind of value is emotional value. Everyone acknowledges that emotions exist, yet some in business are still unable to see their impact on customer decisions. A “just-the-facts-ma’am” approach doesn’t allow room for emotions to enter the equation. Yet, emotions are not only deeper in the relationships between customers and companies (and between individuals, too), but they’re also very much a type of value that gets exchanged, even if they feel invisible. It’s also easy to explain: consumers are willing to pay more for those experiences that provide them with the emotions they seek. That’s all there is to it, but it flies in the face of traditionalists who insist that “people won’t pay more for things than they have to.”

Of course, every good salesperson knows that they’re selling on the basis of emotions more than on price or performance. It’s why consumers end up with a choice that’s often over their budget or doesn’t meet all of the functional needs they’ve specified. What drives decisions, in these cases, is that the choice makes the buyer feel greater, younger, happier, thinner, more accomplished, sexier—something. That’s incredibly powerful and starts to explain the discrepancy between the book value of a company (the simple tally of its assets and liabilities) and its brand value (which is usually many times higher). This isn’t a nefarious thing, by the way. We’re usually after satisfaction more than features or price, in the first place.

Contrary to being irrational, emotions often aren’t. You may not have realized you had a deep need to feel younger, more active, more successful, but if you respond positively to offerings that make you feel those things, that’s a pretty rational response. The difference is that the decision drivers, at this stage, are no longer so easy to spot, can’t be easily defined, and can’t be easily measured quantitatively. Because they’re not measured, often management is blind to them. The result is huge missed opportunities that are never even seen.

The fourth type of value is identity value, and this governs decisions in terms of what consumers feel fits who they are. Some people are Nike folks; others Adidas; still others identify with Puma or New Balance or Lululemon. Some come from cultural backgrounds that instruct them to only purchase brands that will advance their cultural communities or causes.

Even those who eschew brands react on this level. It may not be healthy to align a personal identity with brands—or construct self-images and identities from brands—but consumers do. They gravitate to things that complement who they feel they are and align with personal values. Like all premium types of value, this decision driver often acts unconsciously and, because humans don’t change their sense of self often, it’s even more powerful and stable than emotional value. For example, if you’re a conservative, a liberal, an agnostic, a Canadian, a Yankee’s fan, or a fanboy of anything (in short, anything you put after “I am a…”), this particular type of value lives in this space.

Whereas many business people recognize that identity value exists, they often manage it in a haphazard way because they can’t easily quantitatively measure its importance, as they can with price and performance. Frequently, they hand off its management to the marketing and advertising folks, who are given at least a bit of a pass on justifying what they do on quantitative grounds. The attitude seems to be, “Well, we can’t really measure this, but we know it matters, so let’s just let the brand people do their thing and hope it pays off.” The blind spot here is even more significant, and the lack of rigor in addressing it can be deeply disconcerting for anyone who has to answer for investment choices.

Finally, there’s meaningful value, which transcends the other types of premium value in significance to customers. It is the deepest, most stable value that gets exchanged between people. In the past, it was mostly exchanged between individuals or between people and institutions like churches or government. Now, however, corporations and organizations of all types play this role in daily life. At this level, it’s not so much about who you are but about how you see the world around you. This is governed by 15 core meanings (see Chapter 7, “Discovering,” for an explanation of core meanings).

People’s core meanings drive decisions about who they’re friends with, what jobs they’ll take, what they buy, and what they read, watch, and play. Whether you see the world as a scary, terrible, dangerous, wondrous, friendly, or hilarious place, that belief lives at this level and when you can surround yourself with people and things that reinforce this view, you’re more satisfied and, as a consumer, willing to pay a lot more. Prius owners and survivalists, alike, are driven by different core meanings at this level.