Sometimes it's hard for marketers to think outside the box. Take painkillers. No-one likes pain, right? Why would anyone want to keep hold of pain? Unless they were weird...
So I loved hearing about the surprise that awaited the marketers at a large pharmaceutical company when they discovered that one of the participants was a professional dominatrix (if you don't know... look it up!)
She pointed out that some pains are enjoyable (and she would know!)
Then they started to think about it some more.
And they realised that there are times when pain is good. When pain is useful.
Take extreme sports people for example. They need feedback from pain so they know when they're getting to the extremes of their endurance.
And maybe some injuries need to keep giving pain so we don't overdo it.
In fact, the more they thought about it, the more they realised there was a HUGE market for a pain drug that wouldn't actually get rid of pain!
It went against everything they thought they knew about their market.
And it made them millions.
So what assumptions are you making about your clients? What assumptions are you making about your market? About your product?
And what would you do differently if you assumed the opposite was true?
