Making Meaning

How successful businesses deliver meaningful customer experiences

From Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff and Darrel Rhea

When broadband service providers first envisioned entering the pay-TV arena with an IPTV offering, the landscape was relatively uncomplicated. Today, those service providers face a dilemma as their key partners actively test direct-to-consumer digital media delivery models. Content partners, movie studios and broadcast TV networks have already launched trials that bypass local distributors. At the same time, Internet portal companies are creating paid and advertiser-supported video delivery models that utilize readily accessible broadband pipes into consumer homes.

Given this scenario, providers should consider the lessons learned and thought-provoking advice found in the new book Making Meaning by Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff and Darrel Rhea; New Riders US $29.99; UK £17.99. Writing in the tradition of Louis Cheskin, one of the founding fathers of modern market research, the authors of Making Meaning observe, define and describe the “meaningful” customer experience. By consciously evoking certain deeply valued meanings through their products, services and multidimensional customer experiences, they argue that companies can create more value and achieve lasting strategic advantages over their competitors.

The authors chart the evolution of innovation relative to consumer demand through three main eras that have occurred since the early nineteen hundreds: 1900’s Product Focus, 1950s Brand Focus, and culminating in the current era “Experience Focus.” The book then discusses how leading companies have evolved beyond the product and brand focus that has proven ineffectual with today’s consumers to deliver a more meaningful experience to customers. The lesson, that decoding human behavior not only raises product and brand awareness, but can be positively applied to shape consumer demand, is one that savvy IPTV providers will absorb and use to their advantage.

In summary, service providers need to think beyond merely delivering a digital lifestyle to consumers: they must help to define it. Strategies to block or handicap direct-to-consumer service bypass might seem like the simple solution. Ironically, it already appears that the regulatory and consumer backlash from this shortsighted approach may be a more troublesome solution than the problem it was intended to solve.

David H. Deans is the principal consultant of Deans & Associates, a telecom sector market analysis and consulting firm. He has authored numerous published articles on technology applications, public policy, customer care and organization development.