Consumers often fall into the trap of accepting their daily challenges and everyday pain points. By now, we consider it part of our everyday lives to have trouble connecting to our bluetooth speakers or keeping our coffee hot. As marketers, it’s our job to identify consumer pain points before they even recognize them as daily challenges. How do we identify these pain points? Observation.
We’re going to explore two companies who perfected the art of observation this year and noteworthy marketing content based off of their findings. By observing the behaviors of their target customers, Sonos and Starbucks were able to successfully market their products. Let’s dive deeper into the efforts made by these two companies to uncover consumer pain points!
Sonos: “You’re Better Than This”
Through a series of mini ads, Sonos was able to resonate with millions of music fans who were familiar with the troubles of playing their jams loud and proud. All they needed were ten 15-second spots to convey to target customers how easy it is to play their favorite music in every room of their house. Gone are the days of push notifications, unsuccessful pairings and low volumes disrupting your music experience.
By observing the world around them, the marketers at Sonos were able to take advantage of these daily pain points, which consumers have come to accept as the norm with playing music in 2016. The ad spots succeed in marrying familiarity with humor while displaying the product features of the Sonos system. The product’s ease of use proves to the target customer that they are better than poor pairing devices and hard-to-hear speakers.
Starbucks: “Control your temperature. Taste the difference.”
Drinking coffee or tea is an experience worth savoring from the first sip to the last drop…or at least Starbucks thinks so. Tired of drinking the second half of your coffee cold? Starbucks has created a travel beverage mug, Ember, that lets you control the temperature of your drink.
Through the Starbucks website or the mini-site designed for the product, Ember is available for purchase. The mini-site dedicated to the product includes two notable 10x content pieces, such as the product’s official commercial and a company video. Additionally, the mini-site includes an advanced help desk landing page that provides support for prospective consumers and product owners.
Starbucks was able to observe the coffee drinking habits of their daily consumers and used these observed behaviors to create a reliable and high-quality product with a simple user experience.
