Customer, Company, Product and WOW

Brand Positioning is one of the most discussed factors to determine a product/service’s performance in the business world. Whether its fertilizer, furniture, MSPN or spacecraft, every product needs to position itself within the mental sphere of the right audience. For many of us, business is more about finding a solution (to an existing problem) in a profitable way and to identify the problem, we should know our target consumers/users and their WOW (Weight Of Wallet).

Brand positioning, as defined by Kotler and Keller, is an act of designing the company's offering and image to occupy a distinct place in the mind of the target market. The objective of positioning is to locate the brand into the minds of stakeholders; customers and prospects in particular. As all of us know, identifying key customers and their challenges is the first and foremost activity in product/solution development and this identification process generally revolves around principles of economics where Demand and Supply meets expectations of end-users as well as developers of the desired solution. This dependence eventually decides the relationship between the availability of a particular product and the desire (or demand) for that product has on its price. When considered as whole the above discussed phenomenon translates into the fact:

"The wealthier the customer, the premium the solution"

From here we reach a point that emphasizes on measuring the Weight of Wallet of our target customers. The heavier the wallet, the better the products/services. Combined are the set of other parameters that generally change with change in Weight Of Wallet (referred to as WOW further) i.e. Clothings, Society, Dine-out preferences, Vacations etc. To illustrate the same, we take an example of sanitary ware business and observe diversity in prices within the same product. In the above picture (header), we can see different faucets (similar design: pillar cock) sold by different companies. The range starts from INR 999 and reaches INR 46,376 per piece (ref: www.amazon.in and FCML), rest assured, pricing has no limits and so does the offering. It is evident from the above figure that all these brands relate to different set of customers and satisfy their needs/augmented needs, but, the penultimate question still remains unanswered:

What make some companies sell their products at a premium price?

Perhaps, it is the brand positioning and brand equity that are directly linked to their strategy addressing the rift between increasing scales of economy and marginal utility. In contrast, another thought runs into our mind which made us believe that almost all organizations wish to commoditize their products (for falling in line with increasing economies of scale and valuations), however, it has been observed that most of the organizations prefer commoditizing their brands only after creating strong brand equity and positioning in their prospect's mind share. This conflict make us conclude that the concept of WOW is the crux of the marketing strategy for most of the organizations during different stages of the product lifecycle.

In addition to the above discussed, we also have a set of organizations offering products/services related to social needs. Principles of WOW do not apply to those products because the strategy for social entrepreneurship revolves around economies of scale and affordability.

Why WOW is important?

Wight Of Wallet combined with financial instruments decides the disposable income of the customer. Most of the luxury goods and service i.e. holiday packages, sports car etc. completely depends upon WOW. Financial institutions and credit lenders play a significant role in increasing disposable income by altering consumer behavior and willingness towards credit exposure. As there are fewer takers of these products, the organizations thrive to generate more profits per transaction which in return helps them in optimizing their processes. WOW when combined with SOW (Share Of Wallet) talks about microscopic percentage distribution of market among several players, making it much more wholesome in nature.

From the above discussion, we can easily deduce that the concept of WOW is applicable from product development stages to Customer Support services and further. It won't stand incorrect if we say that Weight Of Wallet is the concept that defines awa gets defined by the product life cycle.

Hence, sometimes it is not only the intent or the product or the service..but the weight your customer carries in their rear pocket. Just WOW!