A story of a mind reader who deliberately framed the Japanese populace to taste the flavour of coffee that they had not known for ages.
This brilliant idea was initiated in the cold streets of Paris at Parisian University in 1975. Clotaire Rapaille, a French marketing consultant, was invited to share his valuable opinion on the topic of “the interaction of psychology and emotions that attracted the smartest people in the region”.
After the Speech, a Nestle executive approached Dr Rapaille and asked him a question that swirled his thoughts outside the box.
The European industries successfully established their empire in the Japanese markets except for Nestle, which was constantly failing to reach the Japanese homes. Meanwhile, they were also facilitated by the other global firms to promote their products as no quality issue was reported. But, what exactly was the reason behind their loss?
The executive offered Dr Rapaille a fine deal to increase their market in Japan—enough money to buy his own island.
As a wiseman once said, "the world is full of answers to all your questions, you only need to search for the place where they exist", Dr Rapaille uniquely began his tactics.
At first, he summoned people to volunteer for his experiment and instructed them to lie down on their backs and shut their eyes.
The whole environment was filled with relaxing music. “Explain your childhood and also about the items and products that you used to like”, Dr Rapaille instructed.
They all became happy while sharing their memories—but they were quiet when Dr Rapaille asked them about their thoughts on coffee.
When he asked the reason, the volunteers divulged that they preferred to drink tea. People in Japan had been drinking tea for thousands of years and with this knowledge, Dr Rapaille started planning a strategy.
He commenced with children as the target audience. Nestle started making coffee-flavoured candies to woe the Japanese children. This experiment was a long-term strategy to attract Japanese consumers because Nestle wanted to introduce the flavour of coffee to children at a young age, which would later lead to capturing their attention as adults. Psychologically, we all remember glimpses of our childhood memories of enjoying toffees and hammock rides. Similarly, these children would miss the taste of coffee candies, ultimately opening the doors for Nestle products to enter the market on demand. This strategy is called the imprinting strategy.
The experiment was a huge success that filled the stores’ shelves with Nestle’s coffee-flavoured candies and KitKats. Furthermore, parents also became curious to try the coffee candies.
Nestle bamboozled the entire market with an enormous number of sales. In time, the initial customers became old enough to share their coffee candy experience.
Nestle now imports 500,000 pounds of coffee annually, making it one of the top brands in Japan. Despite the fact that it took Nestle forty years to forge a solid relationship with the Japanese people, Dr. Rapaille's plan was successful.
Dr. Rapaille illustrated the influence of emotions in business. He triggered the human behavioural aspects to implement his plan. The trick is simple! Keep researching and seeking out opportunities instead of forfeiting.
Try to always surround yourself with positive peers because the energy from them will help you face the challenges with courage. People who talk negatively about everything can’t do anything in their lives and provoke others by boasting unnecessarily bad predictions. Therefore, we need to understand the leverage of positive thinking and let go of overthinking. If you see goodness in any situation, it will help you to tackle the forthcoming predicament.