Comments on: Good Enough Ain't Good Enough

By: Focus Your Energy Upon The Marketing… Grasshopper

Focus Your Energy Upon The Marketing… Grasshopper — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:23:02 +0000

[...] Now, in response to Seth’s post, there was an outcry amongst blog authors, most of whom cite the iPod as a SHINING example of “good enough” not being nearly good enough. Even though this [...]

By: John

John — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 20:06:55 +0000

As a wise man (or woman) once said:
“The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of a cheap price goes away.” But I think there’s been a radical shift in many marketplaces…let me explain:

In my eyes, quality is a relative thing. This “thing” is a quality item compared to “thing 2.0″. There’s no way to know what quality is unless you have something to compare it to. But today’s marketplaces are so filled with mediocre items that you have nothing to compare them to. Listen to a cd through a great system and you think it sounds great, but listen to an LP through a great system and be prepared to be blown away. You’ll hear sounds you never know were there and feel bass sounds like you’ve never felt. But almost noone listens to LPs anymore so they have nothing to compare their CDs to, so they think they’re great, especially when compared to the sound on their iPod.
Now I’m not here to bash the iPod, its a nice piece of technology. But it sounds lousy. Its relatively easy to use and is really portable and is good enough to listen to while walking or working out, etc…here we go again, its “good enough”. Especially when compared to its “good enough” counterparts in the marketplace.
Which all leads to where I’ll apply this to what I try to do in my studio. I don’t aim for good enough, I aim for great. Do I always hit it? Absolutely not. But my quest for great brings me to levels I never thought I could reach.
Great products are memorable and seem to hang around forever. ’57 Chevys were great and never go out of style. Ford Escorts were good enough and get re-made into beer cans daily. Its not marketing, its the product! Bottom line: Time is the final decider as to what is great and what is good enough. I’m not really a Beatles fan, but they were great and they’re on the radio every day. The Knack were good enough and most people are thinking right now “Who the hell are The Knack?”

By: Alka Dwivedi

Alka Dwivedi — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 13:07:10 +0000

How to create a successful advertising campaign?…

I often snigger at various advertisements. Very few advertisements are successful in achieving their objectives. At the basic level, it is taught, if you are creating an ad, try to follow the AIDA Model. It goes something like this (for the un-initiate…

By: Alka

Alka — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 22:46:28 +0000

Harvard Business Review Working Knowledge says
“.. [F]rustrated product owners . . . will spread the word of their dissatisfaction. This appears to be the case with BMW, whose 7 Series cars feature the complicated iDrive system, which offers about 700 capabilities requiring multifunction displays and multistep operations—even for functions that formerly required the twist of a knob or the flick of a switch. BMW included instruction sheets in the glove compartment because it is almost impossible to give the car to a valet parker without an impromptu lecture. According to industry news reports, sales of the 7 Series in the United States in the first half of 2005 were down about 10 percent relative to the same period in 2004. Past studies have established the power of positive word of mouth and the much greater prevalence of its negative form—and most of those studies were conducted before the Internet gave every dissatisfied party a global sphere of influence.”
…”In 2004, Stephan Wolfsried, vice president for electrical and electronic systems and chassis unit at DaimlerChrysler’s Mercedes Car Group, said that integrating all those functions caused truly important electronic parts to malfunction occasionally and made testing the system more expensive. Moreover, Wolfsried said, the functions were ones that “no one really needed and no one knew how to use.” One example he noted was the storage of a driver’s personal seat position in the car key. “It was done with good intentions, but if I take my wife’s key at some point and can’t find my own seat position any more, that tends to be annoying for me instead of comfortable.”

By: Lewis Green

Lewis Green — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 15:28:18 +0000

I think you miss the point. Good enough is determined by the customer not by the producer. Simply put, in terms of audio products, if my market is the music industry, good enough is different than if my market is made up of 12-year-olds. Like Seth, as a marketer I am befuddled by manufacturers who make products for themselves rather than for their target markets. Sometimes a towel is just a towel, and that’s good enough.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 15:24:01 +0000

Hey Jes:

I do understand that sometimes, adding bells and whistles to a product doesn’t make it better, just more confusing. My “beef” is that in the rush to simplify, quality has gone out the window. Sure you can hear your favorite tunes from your iPod whenever or wherever you want, but the sound quality is terrible. Play that MP3 on a system with a decent set of speakers, and it;s like a different song.

Sure I’d like to hear every note that a composer wrote for a classical piece, but I also want to hear everything Elvis Costello wrote on “Pump It Up” too.

You’re right about cell phones, there’s such a rush to cram as much technology into the smallest footprint, that new doesn’t always mean better. However, new or old, the quality of the sound they reproduce is horrible, and that hasn’t improved. Can you hear me now? What? Can you hear me now? What!?!?

Oh, and thanks for stopping by!

By: jes

jes — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 14:53:15 +0000

I never respond to most of these blogs but I tend to agree with Seth. In reading your blog on “good enough”, unless your a professional (like you) or you’re music saavy and want to hear the high notes in a classical music piece, the product on the market is for the general public. Tried a cell phone lately? I wanted a new one so i stopped by my local cell phone store, walked out completly confused.I going to keep my old one for now. I’m thinking “good enough is good enough). First time on your site, very enjoyable! jes