Perception Road Blocks

Image: gowingassociates.com

If you are one of the 2 people that follow this blog (going places), you know that my family has grown to 6 ***sigh*** It wasn't that long ago that my wife and I were moving into a little apartment wide-eyed excited about our future. We're still excited, just about different aspects of our lives. We have a 1-week old baby, weighs about 8 lbs or so; and we didn't have our other children for a couple of days. Family was kind enough to help us out while we were in the hospital and getting back to life in general. For the longest time our 3rd child, who is 2.5 now, had been the baby of the family. Carrying him was no problem at all. He is the most active of all of our kids and gifted physically, but there were times when he would fall asleep in the car or didn't bring his shoes and needed to be carried for whatever reason.

After going several days with this 8 lb infant, I picked him up to put him in his bed and he felt like he had gained 50 lbs! He had suddenly become so heavy. This caused me to think about the comparison that I was dealing with between the 2 kids. Comparatively they are 2 completely different people, but I was used to carrying a certain amount of weight and associating that with my youngest child. My perception wasn't changing, it was staying the same thinking that they are the same person.

This, I think, happens all too often in business. Companies try to make a "one size fits all" type of product to apply to everyone, but don't ever change their marketing campaign for each potential target market. This seems like one of the biggest differences between Apple and Microsoft. Apple has a great product in the iPad, but apply different marketing campaigns to teachers, doctors, parents, kids, etc. Microsoft has a similar product and from the looks of it pretty innovative, but their marketing seems to stay the same; fun, upbeat, energetic, etc. They incorporate music and dancing with their ads, but I can't say that I've seen another advertisement specifically for another market segment that wouldn't relate to these upbeat ads. It seems like they have a product and lack the experience or know-how to make the switch to apply to multiple market segments. Even though you have one product that can apply to different markets, you still have to market them as different products. Change your perception of your customers perception.