IS YOUR PRODUCT A CHIP OR SALSA?

The real meal of chips and salsa is the salsa. The chip is just the vehicle that brings the delicious salsa flavor to your mouth. No one eats just chips. They are hard, flavorless and have little to offer your taste buds. Doritos knows that! They pack their chips full of flavor. So much so, it changes your fingers colors and people go crazy for them. Don’t be mistaken, people don’t buy Doritos over chips AND salsa, for the chips.

Your product is very similar. People buy your product because it either facilitate a behavior that fulfills a need (the chip) or fulfills a need they have on its own (the salsa). You are in big trouble if you don’t know whether your product is the chip or the salsa in this happy, little, symbiotic relationship. If your product is the chip, then people are buying it out of utility because it helps them get closer to fulfilling a different need. Sure, there are good chips and better chips, but chips on their own an excited customer do not make. Chips are ultimately interchangeable – they are all very similar and not the true desire of the consumer. The salsa is what the consumer really wants, which means your product, the chip, is a second thought. People LOVE salsas and are dedicated to salsa they love. They want them, seek them out and tell their friends about their favorite salsas. You must figure out which “want” your customer is getting fulfilled by using your product. Focus your product around that want and your product will also be sought out and shared.

Doritos figured this out! They coat their chips with flavor and added to the chip eating experience with finger-licking-goodness – rendering salsa almost unnecessary when eating them. Successful products are desired by customers and are the part of the experience that customers feel passionately about and want to share. What is your consumers’ salsa? Become that salsa! And make it spicy (if that’s what your consumers like) …