The McKinsey Quarterly: Confronting proliferation … in mobile communications: An interview with Nokia’s senior marketer

Keith Pardy: Our approach is all about putting people at the heart of the way we design and market products: “first we observe, then we design.” We have teams of anthropologists, ethnographers, psychologists, and consumer insight experts observing and understanding people’s behavior. Their insights are used to shape our R&D and design focus.

One thing we’re trying to understand is the unconscious mind and the real reasons people buy things. That’s where the gold dust is. Of course, the products have to be well engineered, and you’ve got to give people rational reasons to buy something. But there are very few consumers out there who buy only based on a rational, linear decision process. Emotional reasons—largely connected to the subconscious—play a critical role. This is especially true for items or objects that are consumed in the public domain. In these situations people don’t buy just for rational reasons.

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