Marketing – Jobs theory
It turns out that people don’t so much buy products; they hire them to perform jobs in their lives. Consumers pull brands into their lives to address circumstances in which they need some help to resolve a struggle or fulfil an aspiration—to make progress.
Consequently, for marketers to develop successful innovations, they need a deep understanding that centres neither on the consumer nor on the product, but rather on the circumstance. What causes a person to consume is neither the identifiable qualities of the consumer (such as demographics) nor the product attributes, but rather it is the circumstance-specific job to be done.
A “job” in the context of innovation;
- A “job” is the progress that an individual seeks in a given circumstance.
- While many of the jobs in our lives have adequate solutions, successful innovations resolve circumstances of struggle and fulfil unmet aspirations: they perform jobs that formerly had only inadequate or non-existent solutions.
- Because jobs occur in the flow of daily life, the circumstance is the essential unit of innovation work.
Innovation initiatives that are organised to resolve well-defined yet poorly performed jobs proceed with purpose and efficiency.
Jobs Theory focuses the insight process on the search for circumstances of struggle, unmet aspirations, and pools of non-consumption. Demand-driven insights identify poorly performed jobs.
Nielsen (2016).