Case fable 1: Qualico

Qualico studied one unique customer and came to understand that customer very deeply and thoroughly, to the point that they knew precisely how that customer perceives, interprets and responds to every detail of his life. From these insights Qualico knew exactly what kind of product would win that customer’s permanent brand loyalty. Based on the study the company rolled out a product, and sold exactly one unit of that product — to that one customer they studied, who, by the way, was ecstatic. Encouraged by this success the company repeated the study with 3 more customers and in three product roll-outs sold three more units and won three more brand fanatics.

Case fable 2: Quantico

Quantico developed a technique for observing, measuring and recording every behavior of every one of their customers. There was no gap in this data. The database could report the exact frequency of any given behavior performed by customers of any given demographic over the course of any given span of time. Unfortunately, nobody in the company could objectively explain what motivated the behavior; they could only report the fact that certain behaviors happened. The company developed what they called the ITMRSM (Infinite Typing Monkeys Rapid Prototyping Methodology), where permutations of the product were systematically generated and tested on customers, whose behavioral responses were measured and tabulated. The products that elicited the highest frequency of desired behaviors were put into production. Eventually the company became able to sell a modest number of units of the product to a modest number of modestly dissatisfied customers.