I recently watched a 2007 Malcolm Gladwell TED Talk on the horizontal segmentation of spaghetti sauce (I’m a fan of Gladwell. And an even bigger fan of spaghetti). In this video, Gladwell explores the food industry’s pursuit of the “perfect spaghetti sauce” and makes a larger argument about the nature of choice and happiness.
At one point during his talk, Gladwell quotes a Yiddish saying:
“To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish.”
Take a moment to read that again. It took me some time to internalize the quote and understand its deeper meaning. Hear me out…
In the context of organizations
With this simple quote, Gladwell emphasizes the tunnel vision companies can get trapped in when pursuing a specific market segment – and miss out on potential sales/product expansions because the organization is set in its ways.
In a previous blog post, “What got you here, won’t get you there”, I had written about strategic frames. These are the mental models that shape how leaders view their business. By focusing an organization’s attention repeatedly on certain things, frames can seduce leaders into believing that these are the only things that matter. These frames become self-imposed blinders as they constrict peripheral vision, preventing organizations from noticing innovative/adjacent opportunities.
Once a certain product works particularly well, organizations have a strong incentive to lock specific processes and stop searching for alternatives. The organization then follows a specific path forward not because it is effective or efficient but because it is comfortable. Once it becomes a routine, alternative processes almost never get considered and active inertia sets in.
In the context of individuals/customers
In the same way, customers do not always recognize their wants because they do not possess the worldview to see things differently from how they are currently experiencing it, or how they may have previously experienced it.
Individuals often see only what they are familiar with. A customer’s frame of reference is often moulded by a complex set of assumptions which are used to filter perceptions to create meaning. This personal frame can be shaped by beliefs, preferences, values, and pre-conceived notions resulting from years of doing things a certain way.
Gladwell shares stories about soda, pickles, and spaghetti sauce to highlight historic examples of existing paradigms, and how these strategic frames shifted subsequently. I share these 3 stories with you below.
The Perfect Pepsi(s)
Gladwell presents a story of a psychologist, Howard Moskowitz. Moskowitz was hired by Pepsi to conduct an experiment to understand just how much aspartame Pepsi should put into each can of Diet Pepsi in order to have the perfect drink. To find out what people preferred, Howard set about conducting tests, gathering data and plotting the results from thousands of assessments.
Through the data collected, Moskowitz discovered that people’s responses did not coalesce around one single solution. Some people liked their Diet Pepsi really sweet and some who did not like sweet at all.
Pepsi had been operating under a paradigm which said that there was one perfect Diet Pepsi. While in reality, there was no perfect Diet Pepsi (singular). Only perfect Diet Pepsis (plural). Sweet Diet Pepsi: perfect for those that like Sweet Diet Pepsi. And not-so-sweet Diet Pepsi: perfect for those that like not-so-sweet Diet Pepsi.
The Perfect Pickle(s)
Moskowitz was then approached by Vlasic Pickles with a similar request: to help create the perfect pickle product. Through a similar line of testing and experimenting, Moskowitz discovered yet again that the data revealed that pickle eaters fell into distinct groups. There was no perfect pickle. Only perfect pickles. Vlasic, wanting to capture a bigger share of the market, decided to develop pickles for each group.
His work helped Vlasic Pickles improve not only their regular product, but also gave them inspiration for new types of pickles – from low salt to the zesty pickle. The end result? Vlasic Pickles increased sales of their pickles from $125 million to $500 million.
Chunky Spaghetti Sauce: My Favorite Origin Story
Soon after, Prego’s parent company, Campbell Soup, approached Moskowitz with their struggling line of Prego spaghetti sauce. At the time, they had just one version of Prego: authentic, Italian spaghetti sauce. They asked him to apply what he had learned about pickles to their product – they wanted him to figure out a few varieties of spaghetti sauce that people liked most.
Moskowitz worked with the Campbell’s chefs, and created 45 varieties of spaghetti sauce. He found that the results indicated that the majority of people fell into 3 groups: people who love plain sauce, people who love spicy sauce, and people who love extra chunky sauce.
Until this research, no one had even thought of developing a chunky variety of spaghetti sauce – yet one third of Americans highly preferred it.
The result? $600 million dollars in 10 years from the Prego chunky sauce line alone.
The Key Takeaway
Moskowitz changed the food industry with the data that he found in working with Prego. He is the reason why there are so many different varieties in the food industry. He showed the food industry that universals are not the way to go.
Now, a cautionary note – creating unique products for every single customer is not practical. You just cannot make 1000 different types of pickles for a 1000 different customers. Add-ons and multiple SKUs are not practical for many organizations.
So how do you apply the Moskowitz way of thinking to your marketing/product ideation efforts? Instead of looking for a universal message or the one perfect product, look for variables that can make products more uniquely appealing to segments. Make a concentrated effort to understand more about how your customers think, feel, and live their lives – and look for reasoning behind what drives them to make decisions.
Every customer – every person – is unique. There are no perfect or imperfect products. Only different kinds of products that suit different kinds of people.
Each worldview is valuable and each perspective has a truth to tell. Note that within your ‘world of horseradish’, you may only see what you expect - horseradish. Your organization must imagine what additional truths yet another view might have to show. Multiple truths become visible through the different lenses that breadth can provide — through customers, technology, leadership, suppliers and investors.
But you have to look.
The world, after all, is not horseradish.
You can watch the complete TED talk by Malcolm Gladwell HERE.
