In my early years working at an advertising agency, I
once presented a creative idea to a client only slightly older than
myself, who asked me plaintively: "But how am I meant to know if
it's good or not?" His question was not so naive. Many years later,
that's still a question that can be difficult to answer. How indeed
does one judge the quality of something as unpredictable as a
creative idea, when its quality is the one thing that will set it
apart?
Last month on a visit to the headquarters of the Lavazza company
in Torino with participants from our Executive Master in Marketing
and Creativity programme, I think I came across a good answer to
that question. I innocently asked our host Matteo Marello: "If
quality is so important to you, how do you judge the quality of the
coffee delivered by your suppliers?"
And this is what he told us:
First, there is no consistent language or measure of taste against
which to work. "Fruity" as a flavour might be good to one person,
bad to another, and something different to a third. So the first
step is to select samples that both sides agree represents the
quality you seek, setting a standard that you aim to
maintain.
Second, coffee (like creativity) is an organic product. The
individual beans will vary, some will have flaws and you will never
get 100% perfection. What you need to do is to live with a level of
acceptable risk. With coffee, the quality of the beans will vary
with the weather; in the case of the creative industries, the
sources of unpredictability tend to be more human!
Third, check the provenance. While the quality of the product may
be affected by conditions beyond the supplier's direct control, if
it comes from a reliable and proven source you can be re-assured
that it will be the best you can have, given the prevailing
circumstances.
Fourth, while you can't measure absolute quality in the lab you
can certainly check for toxins. As with coffee beans, so with
creativity. Think of the primary role of research as picking up and
resolving any hidden problems that may lead to 'toxic'
results.
Finally, product quality stands or falls in its delivery. Only 25%
of the final taste you experience in an espresso is down to the
coffee that goes into it; the remaining 75% is determined by the
espresso machine and the skill of the barista. So however good the
core product, the execution will make or break it.
On reflection, what I rediscovered from our friends at Lavazza
last month is that the most insightful measure of product quality
is your own instinctive reaction to it. And that, by the way, is
the same answer I gave to my young, questioning client all those
years ago.
I'm relieved to learn now that it wasn't such bad advice!
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