Swearingen Communications Insights
Fresh ideas, seasoned perspectives, and solid marketing strategies to keep you grounded and growing.
Are You Listening, or Merely Counting?
Ski, Norway – February 27, 2012: Lego building bricks and blocks. The Lego toys were originally designed in the 1940s in Denmark and have achieved an international appeal.
Lego, the largest toy company in the world based on sales, nearly went bankrupt 20 years ago.
The reason? Executives relied too much on what “big data” was telling them. They stopped listening to customers, and started counting data points instead.
As reported by Kate Murphy in the Wall Street Journal (May 24, 2021), leadership at the Danish toymaker became persuaded that younger digital generations were becoming addicted to instant gratification. In response, they redesigned Lego sets with larger pieces that could be finished more quickly.
The result? A near-death spiral in sales.
What saved them? They started listening to customers again. They launched focus groups, home visits, and other one-on-one encounters with end users. In the process, Lego discovered that the younger generation wasn’t nearly as drawn to instant gratification as the quantitative (vs. qualitative) research indicated.
Lego worked its way back from the abyss. Not only did it resume making smaller pieces, it increased the intricacy of its sets. Along the way it learned an invaluable lesson: The heart of marketing is listening to clients.
No matter your profession or industry, it pays to listen. Most businesses ask clients for direct feedback at the start of their relationship. That often tapers off. It’s essential to keep listening.
Today’s digital capabilities, analytics, and other technology can seduce us into wrong thinking. We trust the math. Perhaps we start making assumptions based on an algorithm, instead of a conversation.
Big data is here to stay. But human emotion, values and priorities came first. Never forget that they always will.
©2021 Swearingen Communications, all rights reserved.
