6 blades... really!?!  Read on...

When I was in college Gillette came out with the innovative Trac II- two blades on one razor. The logic made sense to me- the first blade does most of the work and the second blade gets what the first blade missed. That was 30+ years ago.

Today's razors have not two, but up to six blades! The value proposition just isn't there. There's incremental improvement, and there's improvementless improvement. Here's a scathing commentary (rated R for language kids!) from the Onion, written a year before the five bladers hit the market. And check out this video contrasting the Trac II with Gillette's new (as of 2010) ProGlide razor.

I understand the need for continuous innovation and improvement. And the need to to create a "felt need."Every marketer does. I get Gillete's oft-cited mantra of giving away the razor and making money on razor blades. And generating a perpetual revenue stream at $10 for a handful of razor blades every few weeks. 

But six blades?! Maybe it sells and is a money-maker. From a customer point of view, it appears manipulative and disingenuous. As a proponent of honest marketing and customer intimacy, I think Gillete, Schick, or a new entrant in the market would garner far more trust, competitive advantage, and market share by going back to a two-blader and telling customers exactly why. Who wil take the risk and reap the rewards?

Me? I just bought an old-fashioned double-edged safety razor. Classic design, far more economical, and closer shaves. Yeah.

We do a lot of work with companies that make products for the healthcare industry. One of the recurring challenges we take on is helping companies figure out how to connect emotionally with their customers - often doctors, nurses, and healthcare executives. One useful conceptual framework is Emotional Design, pioneered by Don Norman in a book by the same name (Don was a psych. professor and mentor of mine at UCSD a few decades ago, and is one of those very smart and practical guys). His framework can help achieve connection when designing medical devices, developing public health programs, or shaping healthcare services. Don's Linked In profile summarizes the framework this way:

 "The three kinds of design, the better to ensure enjoyable, pleasurable results. Visceral Design emphasizes appearance. Behavioral design emphasizes function, understandability, and the sheer joy of handling, touching, hearing, and using a well-designed product. Reflective design is about pride of ownership, about image, and the role of brands."

Here's an old TED video in which Don explains his thinking that led to the book.

More and more, I think marketing is all about connecting on an emotional level. Call it heart connection. So how do you know if your design is on the right emotional track?

Apply our think/feel/do test. For every feature of your product, program, or service, force your team to articulate what it should make the user think, and feel, and do. Then do the research to see if the features achieve the intended objectives, especially the feeling or emotional objective. If yes, you're on the right track. If not, back to the drawing board. For when design connects on an emotional level, it is astounding.

P.S. For the theorists among us: Given that the Emotional Design framework grew out of the classic ABC model  (affect, behavior, and cognition) to understand how attitudes are formed, our simple think/feel/do test is well-aligned with its principles. 

Image source: http://cpaprotectplus.com/blog/2011/03/warning-signs-of-an-unhealthy-heart-th...

Imagine you have a bunch people in a room talking about buying or using a certain product or service. Like in a focus group. And you happen to know that emotion drives behavior more than logic. So how do you get these folks to reveal not just their thoughts but their underlying feelings too?

Let's set aside the assumption (and it's a significant one!) that the people are aware of and able to talk about their feelings. 

One standard query, borrowed from psychotherapy, is asking "How do you feel about that?" In my opinion, this is bad in therapy and it's bad in marketing research. As soon as we ask "How..." we are inviting people to become analytical, which frequently moves them away from feelings, not towards them. That's why responses are usually not expressions of emotion, but rather thoughts like "I feel that it's a good product" or simply "OK." When we get more directive, and say "How does that make you feel?" we still hear back thoughts, but often coupled with defensiveness triggered by the implied causality.

What works better is to ask what questions like "When you use the product, what do you feel?" perhaps supplemented with a range of examples. However, I think it's most effective to probe about feelings in real time when we observe them. For example, if you see people become passionate in a discussion, acknowledge it and get more by saying, "You seem to have strong feelings about that. Tell me about it." And when doing so, be sure you echo back the intensity of the feelings they expressed.

Getting people to talk honestly about their feelings is an art. And it's not easy. A lot of moderators are more comfortable facilitating discussions about thoughts and ideas, rather than feelings and emotion. But bottom line, nothing makes for open hearts and deeper connections more than the respectful and honest sharing of emotion. Which makes the outcomes of marketing research far more effective.

Image source: http://cache2.artprintimages.com/p/LRG/7/781/6G8I000Z/art-print/jim-borgman-h...

How do you get people to change their behaviors? 1) You can EDUCATE them. 2) You can ENFORCE consequences. 3) You can change their ENVIRONMENT. These are the "3Es" of behavior change, a simple and powerful model for influence.

The current "cell phone in cars" debate offers a prime illustration of the 3Es. As a starting point, we all know it's a bad problem getting worse, as CDC's Injury Center makes very clear.

What to do? Take EDUCATION. The cell phone and auto industries, together with injury prevention folks, can create campaigns to teach us that driving while texting, talking or surfing the web is dangerous and even deadly. Check out, for example, the Department of Transportation's (DOT) "Distracted Driving" efforts here. These campaigns can make a difference, though research shows that most health campaigns generate only a modest impact. That's in part because most campaigns are based on the misguided premise that if people just know better, they will change. Decades of research, and even a bit of life experience, make clear the often-exercised human ability to not act in accordance with what we "know" is best.

So let's add some teeth with ENFORCEMENT! We're trying that now with police levying heavy fines on people driving while holding and using a cell phone. But it's tough to catch people in the act. And we need to deal with the resource allocation argument of diverting police from "serious" crimes. In a sense, enforcement is a fear tactic, which means that the perceived risk of getting caught coupled with the perceived seriousness of the consequences (fines, loss of license, shame, etc.) needs to be sufficient to motivate behavior change, but without being so scary that it makes people tune out.

Will changing the ENVIRONMENT help? Some call this approach social engineering (a powerful and traditionally unpopular phrase in some political camps). An example would be creating technology in cell phones and cars that make it impossible to use the phones while driving. Note that in the extreme, this approach eliminates choice. Knowledge and motivation no longer matter. That's the power of engineering an environment that makes the desired behavior change happen. 

Engineering the environment is what I think it will take to really impact such prevalent and highly addictive behaviors like cell phone use in cars. Complement it with education so we object less, and with enforcement for those who create workarounds. 

There you have it. The 3Es in action.

Photo source: plg-pllc.com