Product Obsession Over Marketing

“with the product, and are always trying to improve it. We take any complaint very seriously, even if it arises out of the customer's own error (such as failure to read the instructions), and solve the problem. Customer feedback is our way of foretelling and directing our future, and we spare no expense in acting on that feedback. We are aware - as the Japanese are - that the strength of our business does not lie with the quality of the director's and senior managers, but with the quality, effort, intelligence and, above all, enthusiasm, of everyone else. We are fascinated, to the point of obsession, with the product. We do not, perhaps, attain quite the delirious object fetishism of the Japanese, but are determined that whatever we produce should be perfect, as well as exciting and beautiful. It is this that allows us to maintain ownership of our product, and without it we do not have a business.”

“As a marketing ethos, 'Say Goodbye to the Bag' has been criticised as insufficiently 'proactive', a word I hate. Why don't we tell people how the machine dry-cleans, how it climbs stairs, how it has an automatic hose action? The answer is twofold: you can't sell more than one message at a time, or you lose the belief of the consumer, and we had to establish, beyond all question, that our machine overcame a problem that all other systems suffered from.”

“For example, the McDonald's people found out that the quality of the fries depended significantly on the starch content of the potatoes used, which had to be 21 percent. Ray Kroc sent specialists to the potato suppliers, who measured the starch content of the potatoes with a strange device - a hydrometer. The sight of the McDonald's specialists with their hydrometers left many a potato farmer speechless. They had never experienced someone showing up to subject their potatoes to thorough testing. But Kroc was still not satisfied. He inquired about how the potatoes were stored, and was shocked to hear that most suppliers stored the tubers in artificial caves lined with peat. So he began to look for processing companies that were willing to invest in modern storage with automatic temperature control. But that wasn't enough. With scientific precision, he had the frying process in the restaurants analyzed and potential improvements worked out. The husband of Kroc's secretary, who had previously worked as an electrical engineer for Motorola and then opened a McDonald’s restaurant with his wife, studied the frying process for the fries for several months in the basement of his restaurant. Eventually, he came to the belief that McDonald’s needed its own research lab, because despite all the improvements, the quality of the fries varied – and Kroc would not tolerate this. Kroc eventually agreed to the proposal to set up a small laboratory.”

“A Capri-Sun or a portion of fries might seem like simple things. You have no idea how difficult it is to perfect such a product for the global market, how many difficulties and setbacks have to be overcome. This can only be achieved if the entrepreneur takes delight in experimenting.”