Book Review: “Priceless”
All,
today I want to start something new: a book review corner.
Actually, it is not a formal book review: for that, I know you can just go to Amazon and access great reviews. Instead, I will share what I found interesting and what I jotted down in my personal notes from the book I just finished.
Today's book is “Priceless – Turning Ordinary Products into Extraordinary Experiences” by Diana LaSalle, Terry Britton.
The reference is to the MasterCard commercial, that uses the word "Priceless" to indicate those experiences that we can enjoy when we purchase the right products in the right moments. The underlying question of the book is: why so few companies take the pain to study how to make our interaction with them and their products "Priceless", meaning unforgettable, fantastic, life enhancing etc.
The book is a complement to “The Experience Economy”: it adds to it, but definitely it cannot replace it. If you have not read “The Experience Economy” I strongly encourage you to do so before reading “Priceless”
Here are my notes, in semi-random order:
Everybody just try to sell products; providing memorable experiences is still the realm of the few.
Memorable experiences on the other hand are those that create barriers against competitors and that allow to charge more. They are also the best line of defense against the biggest of evils: commoditization – the process through which a product becomes so common place that differentiation becomes difficult and the lower price rules.
Without a real experiential difference, people will flatten you to a price dimension. To have a more holistic, vivid impact, you need to provide a different level of service: personal, memorable and positive.
Companies still take the features/benefits view: almost never the experiential view: and in today’s market, providing memorable experiences is great business.
Don’t look at consumers as logical thinkers who make purchasing decisions to solve problems –someone needs to open a can so she buys a can opener – but look beyond the product to how it impacts consumers’ lives. For example, a professionally prepared tax return isn’t about complying with government regulations; it’s about peace of mind.
Delivering features/benefits impacts just the rational part of our minds. Moving to the experience level impacts the emotional (and less rational) side of the prospect. In this space, money is not that important… people very seldom remember how much they paid to enterDisneyWorld , but they know how much a pizza costs…
People will pay any price for something of incredible value. But only the customers can decide the value of something, not the manufacturer…
Even basic products like a candle or gasoline yield excellent opportunities to increase margins, by moving to an experience level. For instance, Illuminations (www.illuminations.com) is able to charge 8$ for a candle that is just a fraction more expensive to produce that the one we can buy at Wal-Mart. But because Illuminations focuses on the experience, rather than the mere feature/benefit dimension of a candle, it provides an experience to the shopper, that gladly pays 400% more for a that item.
I hope you got some value out of my note taking...
Mau in Taipei
today I want to start something new: a book review corner.
Actually, it is not a formal book review: for that, I know you can just go to Amazon and access great reviews. Instead, I will share what I found interesting and what I jotted down in my personal notes from the book I just finished.
Today's book is “Priceless – Turning Ordinary Products into Extraordinary Experiences” by Diana LaSalle, Terry Britton.
The reference is to the MasterCard commercial, that uses the word "Priceless" to indicate those experiences that we can enjoy when we purchase the right products in the right moments. The underlying question of the book is: why so few companies take the pain to study how to make our interaction with them and their products "Priceless", meaning unforgettable, fantastic, life enhancing etc.
The book is a complement to “The Experience Economy”: it adds to it, but definitely it cannot replace it. If you have not read “The Experience Economy” I strongly encourage you to do so before reading “Priceless”
Here are my notes, in semi-random order:
Everybody just try to sell products; providing memorable experiences is still the realm of the few.
Memorable experiences on the other hand are those that create barriers against competitors and that allow to charge more. They are also the best line of defense against the biggest of evils: commoditization – the process through which a product becomes so common place that differentiation becomes difficult and the lower price rules.
Without a real experiential difference, people will flatten you to a price dimension. To have a more holistic, vivid impact, you need to provide a different level of service: personal, memorable and positive.
Companies still take the features/benefits view: almost never the experiential view: and in today’s market, providing memorable experiences is great business.
Don’t look at consumers as logical thinkers who make purchasing decisions to solve problems –someone needs to open a can so she buys a can opener – but look beyond the product to how it impacts consumers’ lives. For example, a professionally prepared tax return isn’t about complying with government regulations; it’s about peace of mind.
Delivering features/benefits impacts just the rational part of our minds. Moving to the experience level impacts the emotional (and less rational) side of the prospect. In this space, money is not that important… people very seldom remember how much they paid to enter
People will pay any price for something of incredible value. But only the customers can decide the value of something, not the manufacturer…
Even basic products like a candle or gasoline yield excellent opportunities to increase margins, by moving to an experience level. For instance, Illuminations (www.illuminations.com) is able to charge 8$ for a candle that is just a fraction more expensive to produce that the one we can buy at Wal-Mart. But because Illuminations focuses on the experience, rather than the mere feature/benefit dimension of a candle, it provides an experience to the shopper, that gladly pays 400% more for a that item.
I hope you got some value out of my note taking...
Mau in Taipei
posted by Mau @ 9:18 AM
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