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Companies should pay attention to the extent to which what

customers say they want does not match their purchasing decisions.

Surveys of customers might claim that 70% of a restaurant’s

customers want healthier choices on the menu, but only 10% of

them actually buy the new items once they are offered. Truly

understanding customers sometimes means understanding them

better than they understand themselves.

Customers can be currently ignorant of what a company might

argue they should want. IT hardware and software capabilities and
automobile features are examples. Customers who in 1997 said that

they would not place any value on Internet browsing capability on
a mobile phone, or 6% better fuel efficiency in their vehicle, might

say something different today, because the value proposition of
those opportunities has changed.

Marketing mix:

is the identification and use of the principles of the 4P's to apply

them to the strategic position of a product in the market. The basic

principle of the marketing mix was laid down in 1948 by James

Colton who suggested that decisions in marketing be determined

based on a recipe. In 1953, Neil Borden, president of the Marketers

Guild of America at the time, named the recipe Marketing Mix. In

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