How much product?

Should we interrogate or think about our products or services more than what the end user thinks about them?
I know - it might be a rather strange question to ask (or is it?) because as marketing and advertising professionals a sizable part of our expertise is embedded in our ability to develop, manage and grow products and services that we market.

But the downside to analyzing the product, or the user and product interaction or consumption is that at some stage we go way to deep into it and might just (and mostly do) lose sight of an average user’s everyday engagement with that product.

When we analyze a lot we run the risk of walking away from consumer’s shoes and the whole thing becomes an exercise in hardcore logic. To top it all logic also ends up assuming that the consumer is thoroughly logical (like us ?!), which is not the case most of the times. The reason for any purchase could be as much emotional as it is logical. But most or the research (qualitative or quantitative) might not endorse this view.
Here is why.

1. Most the people (including us) do not want to be ‘seen as emotional/illogical’. Being emotional, especially in front of strangers (read researchers) is stupid.
Recall any research or consumer interaction that you’d have had in the recent past. When people are sharing very personal or emotional experiences they tend to carry a smile or a giggle. I believe that this is their way of acknowledging – “Oh I am so stupid to have said this or thought this or felt this way..”. The giggle is aimed at making us think that they know they are being frivolous or stupid – whereas the fact is that when they think about it themselves they might not be giggling, instead they might be very serious about it because their feeling are real to them..

2. Even when people want to share their real emotions in front of a nice stranger (read good researcher) their expression might not be precise (remember the Del Amitri song – “It’s hard to say you love someone and it’s hard to say you don’t..”).
Expressing real emotions or deep rooted feeling and sentiments is always an articulation challenge – it is not like ticking a box, it is not even as simple as saying a few words. Usually it is longwinded and meandering and it takes a person (read nice stranger) who can soak up that moment and meandering to understand it

I am beginning to feel that as marketers we need to understand the depths of the product /service possibilities but not do this at the cost of plain simple user thinking. Chances are that the more we think about the product the less we are thinking about the person we made it for. This is especially true for products that are everyday and simple. Where technology has limited edge to provide and most of the products end up being the same. With such products it pays a lot more to look at the user’s life in as much details as possible and find new and interesting ways of liking our product with their lives.