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Changing Values and Characteristics 245

purpose. It works because it asks: What is truly a “service,” truly a
“utility” to the customer?
Every American bride wants to get one set of “good china.” A
whole set is, however, far too expensive a present, and the people giv-
ing her a wedding present do not know what pattern the bride wants
or what pieces she already has. So they end up giving something else.
The demand was there, in other words, but the utility was lacking. A
medium-sized dinnerware manufacturer, the Lenox China Company,
saw this as an innovative opportunity. Lenox adapted an old idea, the
“bridal register,” so that it only “registers” Lenox china. The bride-to-
be then picks one merchant whom she tells what pattern of Lenox
china she wants, and to whom she refers potential donors of wedding
gifts. The merchant then asks the donor: “How much do you want to
spend?” and explains: “That will get you two coffee cups with
saucers.” Or the merchant can say, “She already has all the coffee
cups; what she needs now is dessert plates.” The result is a happy
bride, a happy wedding-gift donor, and a very happy Lenox China
Company.
Again, there is no high technology here, nothing patentable, noth-
ing but a focus on the needs of the customer. Yet the bridal register,
for all its simplicity—or perhaps because of it—has made Lenox the
favorite “good china” manufacturer and one of the most rapidly
growing of medium-sized American manufacturing companies.
Creating utility enables people to satisfy their wants and their
needs in their own way. The tailor could not send the bill to his cus-
tomer through the mails if it first took three hours to get the letter
accepted by a postal clerk and if the addressee then had to pay a large
sum—perhaps even as much as the bill itself. Rowland Hill did not
add anything to the service. It was performed by the same postal
clerks using the same mail coaches and the same letter carriers. And
yet Rowland Hill’s postal service was a totally different “service.” It
served a different function.

II

PRICING
For many years, the best known American face in the world was that
of King Gillette, which graced the wrapper of every Gillette razor blade