The balance of cost, quality and aspiration at any price point of any product or service is a must for tomorrow’s forward looking marketing.

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Balance
of cost,
quality and
aspiration:
A must at any
price point
Senior management “Principles of Marketing” course
at Indian Institute of Management (IIM)
Shombit Sengupta
01
W H I T E P A P E R

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Cost Quality Aspiration
02
The balance of cost, quality
and aspiration at any price
point of any product or service
is a must for tomorrow’s
forward looking marketing.
The selling price of any
product or service is a big
factor for target customers,
whether the category is low
or high priced.
COST DESIGN
Most people do not
flaunt money without having
the appropriate result from
any product.
Humane industrial design, is
the balance of the 3 elements
of cost, quality and aspiration.
Material cost is difficult to control because of market
dynamics such as inflation. There will always be a
bunch of competitors in any product category, but
material cost could be the same for everybody. How
can one player overcome another?

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The pulley system is an ideal
metaphor of reduce effort,
increase comfort, which in
customer usage experience,
changes the paradigm.
03
A strong cue to get customer mindshare is
added perceptible functional benefit.
This can change the volume game.
Production cost decreases when you
have more volume.
ID Product Design is based
on the ideology of “reduce
effort, increase comfort.” which
obviously adds functional
benefit for the user.
Excellence of functionality is the crux in the
evolution of ID Product Design.
Examples that effectively display functional
excellence ranges from the steam engine
to TGV, propeller planes to supersonic
Concorde, basic canvas keds to Nike
But usage superiority is not a matter of
automation or scientific lab work; rather it is
about understanding the consumer in the
psychological lab.
The unsaid aspect in any product usage
is the microtone functional improvement
parameters that customers perceive.
That’s why, to understand gaps in
functionality, we need the combined
physiological and psychological balance
of consumers.
sports shoes, ink for pen to refill ball pens,
typewriter to computer, carbon copy to
photocopy, cash payment to card payment
among many others.

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Humane industrial design
is discovering the unique
functionality that customers
care to use, such as an air
bag in a car.
Generic
Unique
04
In any price segment,
whether it is high
or low, if the functional
superiority is obvious
and universal, it would
mean volume sales
will grow. This would
automatically
bring down the cost
of production.
The consumer’s mind always moves
towards 2 baskets, the generic or unique.
An analogy for the unique find is the gold
micro particles mixed with sand or hidden
in rock, while something very easily found
is the generic.

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Rado
$ 7000
Tag Heuer
$ 4000
Rolex
$ 10000
Swatch $ 30
05
A product should visibly reflect its
quality in the customer’s hand. This will
encourage the customer’s confidence
as the quality of the product’s hidden
mechanism cannot be seen at the
moment of purchase or during usage.
People discover its intrinsic quality with
the passage of time.
The proven example of how
the manufacturer has never
compromised on quality is
the $ 30 Swatch watch which
has never failed in any quality
parameter. And Swatch is no
less in aspiration than any other
costly watch.
QUALITY DESIGN:
It’s no longer true that only
sophisticated, expensive products will
have quality.
Customers get multiple options in the
market today where both quality and
reasonable cost meet their expectation.
In buying Chinese products customers
don’t expect quality beyond a certain
limit as they think they are gaining in
better price advantage.
A branded mass product has to assure
unconditional quality during its durable
usage cycle. Otherwise the customer
gets placed in a trade off situation
between a Chinese product and a well
known branded product.

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ASPIRATIONAL DESIGN
Aspiration is an important element for
sales growth. Once upon a time, it was the
aspiration of royalty or feudal lords that
decided on functionality excellence.
People’s aspiration
level shot up
significantly after
World War II. The
free economy is a key
driver for the growth
of aspiration. The
growth of industry and
globalization led to an
obsession for mass
production to have
control over the global
market. From the
value game, it became
the numbers game.
Car ownership limited to only rich
people before World War II
People’s car “Volkswagen” in mass
production unit after World War II
06
Feudal Lord
When democracy came, the economic
level of people rose, and product
functionality became a factor for multiple
societies to express through their
purchase behaviour. This was the
beginning of the creation of the mass
market.

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Even seemingly irrelevant distribution logistics system can totally
destroy the business result of humane industrial design products.
See how Swatch customises its store according to the locality.
How can we bring this aspiration to every
price point through humane industrial design?
07
Swatch store in
Time Square,
New York Swatch in Soho,
New York
Here aspiration can be transcended
from multiple areas such as
functionality beyond expectation,
high order intensity in user
friendliness, touch and feel of
the product, in aesthetics which
amount to high craftsmanship and
the skill of art in business.

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If you only think of business, art will
escape you; and with art alone you
will not make business. You require
the finesse of art that drives business
through design.
©CopyrightofalllogosandimagesbelongtotherespectiveCos.
But the perfection of these 3 designs depends on
marketing design, in how, and in what context, you sell
the product.
08
A technical tool makes only a stereo typed
industrial design product
An artistic tool for thinking of humane industrial
design can create high volume products
So design that sells a product has
3 components:
• Cost design with uncommon functional superiority
• Quality design at any price point
• Aspirational design at any price point
Shining Consulting Pvt., Ltd.
17, Visveswariya Industrial Area,
Mahadevapura 2nd Stage,
Bengaluru - 560 048, India.
Tel : 91-80-4127 6999 / 81
Fax : 91-80-4127 6990
Email: shining@shiningconsulting.com
www.shiningconsulting.com