There’s a term in marketing called “mapping”. It means rolling out a product or service to customers patterned (mapped) after something they’ve already accepted. Example: New fashion magazines launch with similar paper stock, size, imagery, fonts and other elements that are accepted characteristics of already successful fashion magazines. Fast food chains mimicking the leaders (McDonalds, BK) in product packaging (size of cups, etc), toy offerings, packaging meals (#1, supersized) have a great opportunity to gain acceptance. It tells a customer, “We get you, we understand how you buy other products and make other similar decisions. Here’s ours, packaged the same way.”
You may remember McDonalds’ recent problem when they rolled out drive-thru’s in Asian markets. Mapping consumer behavior would have shown them that Asian families weren’t familiar with drive-thru’s. So customers paid at 1 window, and had to be prompted to go to the next for the food. Many ate in the parking lots and got stuck not knowing how to drive thru, what to do next. The experience wasn’t part of their culture, so it was a foreign experience to be learned over time. Lots of $$ and time wasted.
Brands struggle for mass acceptance because they assume all customers speak their language. Mapping is critical BEFORE rolling out initiatives: “How do our target customers make OTHER decisions in their life, and how do they say/experience things in THEIR world already, at other points of decision?”
Brands that spend less time talking about “how can we be totally unique” and more time asking “how do we fit THEIR world” win market share. Here’s a funny but insightful example to illustrate that showed up on U-tube: “What if Starbucks marketed like Churches?”
