Jobs-to-be-done marketing

I read this article recently and loved the idea of a 'jobs-to-be-done' marketing.

Apparently ~30,000 new consumer products are launched each year. Of these 95% fail to make a mark. Problem ? They all create products slot them into a product category or by a consumer demographic. Not every product works that way. Infact most don't.

A case in point. A company launched a milk shake targeted at a specific demographic. Post launch they conducted a survey to list out the characteristics of an ideal milkshake - thick, thin, chunky, smooth, fruity, chocalatey etc. It was found that most consumers picked up the milkshake because they all had a long boring commute between home and work and had to keep themselves busy, also make the commute more interesting.

Now that the Company realized the job to be done, it was easier to respond by creating a morning milkshake which was thicker and had more chunks of fruit - this lasted through the commute and also made it more interesting.

That's how the 'jobs-to-be-done' mechanism works.

Some indigenous examples I could think of :

• Daag achey hain campaign- by Surf Excel
• Learn English campaign- by Tata Sky
• Maggi moving from just be instant noodles to noodles which are also nutritious (vegetables and atta)

Nielsen and web tracking

Lately the popular auditing and tracking company ACN tried requesting their Television tracking households to allow them to track their cell phone usage and web usage. As anticipated a large proportion of the households refused. So now they have made it optional.

Although the Television track run by ACN is more popular and more reputed than those run by other (smaller, local companies) consumers would not want "so much nosiness" in their affairs.
Imagine feeling like Truman in the Truman show when he discovers he is "a soap character"

Also lately they had to close down another of their projects - Project Apollo which was tracking Radio listening habits thereby ending their alliance with a company whose forte was Radio tracks.

Changing face of the MR industry

The news snippet read : "Hansa Research buys Oregon based US market research Co. GCR."
That, I thought sounded quite reassuring; an Indian firm buying a Global one. So far the research space in India has been dominated largely by MNCs like ACN, TNS, Kantar (IMRB/MB). It would interesting to see the reversal of trends.
The acquisition is understood to give Hansa a toe-hold into technology research and an entry into the US market research sector (total turnover stands at USD 7.72 bn) which is believed to be 70 times larger than that of the Indian counterpart(turnover stands at a mere USD 102 mn)
GCR customer base consists largely of companies in the tecnology and IT space, and includes MS,AMD, HP.
I say reassuring because inspite of having a good talent base in the Indian market research sector, the Indian agencies have been restricted to working as KPOs for international offices of Multinationals. This acquisition should probably see some action where talent gets adequately utilised rather than being a mere back stage operation.