Many companies are achieving major growth from a more consumer centric approach to their business.Consumer Centric means the consumer’s perspective is put at the heart of every business decision. It results in products, services, marketing, in-store experiences, and everything else which touches the consumer being customized to delight the consumer.

Review the following statements. If you say yes to two or more of them, your company likely could benefit from a more consumer centric approach.

1. We normally develop the product/service first, then try to find consumers who will buy it.

2. Most of our consumer understanding comes from quantitative research and focus groups, not ethnographic type research.

3.We normally don’t develop a holistic profile of our target … a profile which contains robust insights that inspire excellence in creation of winning products, effective communications, and delightful in-store experiences.

4. Our segmentation and target audiences are normally defined mainly on demographic variables (age, sex, income, family size, etc).

5. We are often surprised to find that consumers who purchase us in the market are not the same as who we targeted in marketing.

6. Speed to market is highly important, so we do only limited pre-market testing of new products, advertising, etc.

7. Our success rate on new products and services needs improvement.

8. Our advertising could be more effective at persuading consumers to buy our products and services.

9. The ROI (return on investment) of our media spending is not as good as it needs to be.

10. Retailer support of our brands and new products needs improvement.

If you desire to become more consumer centric, call CCC to help on your journey. CCC consultants were leaders (while still with P&G) in re-engineering P&G’s approach to be more consumer centric, and also in driving adoption across all business units.

A. G. Lafley was quoted in Fortune in 2007 as saying “the most transformational thing at P&G over the last seven years has been our new Consumer Is Boss approach to the business” (i.e., the consumer centric approach CCC consultants helped lead at P&G). CCC has since used this expertise to help other companies become more consumer centric, including both durables and non-durables consumer companies.

Can CCC help you?

Contact either Dick Bruder, President & CEO, CCC, Ltd. at
[email protected] or 513-233-0011, or Rad Ewing, Senior CCC Consultant at [email protected] or 513-321-5850

About the Author
Rad was a marketing guru and innovator at P&G for 33 years. In recognition of his wide-ranging contributions, he was awarded the first P&G Lifetime Achievement Award. His expertise is in three areas: Brand Building—principles, tools and process to move from the outmoded “mass marketing model” to a highly effective Consumer Is Boss approach; Shopper Marketing—principles, tools, and organizational structure to move manufacturer relationship with retailers from tactical and price oriented to a more strategic, demand creation level; New Products—principles, tools, and process to dramatically improve NPV, ROI, and success rate. Rad was also the highest rated marketing trainer at P&G, and was an active strategy and marketing consultant with all of P&G’s billion dollar brands, both at the global level and in all geographic regions.