constipation 復習

商品そのものよりもお客様の側に立ち、販売戦略を考えることが大切です。

Japanese snack maker Calbee, Inc., known for favorites such as its Kappa Ebisen shrimp-flavored fried snack and its potato chips, has steadily increased its performance despite the maturing market it operates in. What is the secret? For this edition of “The Leaders,” a column featuring corporate management and senior executives, The Yomiuri Shimbun asked Calbee Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Akira Matsumoto for his insights.

A lot of people say, “If it’s a good product, it will sell,” but that’s not how it works. The important thing is how a product is sold.

Calbee began selling its Fruit Granola — cereal made from grains with dried fruits mixed in — in 1991, but sales were stagnant.

Wondering why something so good wasn’t selling well, I decided to see what could be done about it.
The first thing we looked at was the name of the product. In Japan, McDonald’s is commonly known as Makku, Starbucks as Sutaba and the celebrity Takuya Kimura as Kimutaku. To shorten the name [of Fruit Granola], we changed it to Frugra in 2011.
The next thing was to clarify who exactly we were selling it to. I said, “Let’s try targeting working women in their 20s to 50s.” This demographic responds quickly to new things.

What does this demographic worry about and need? The answer is saving time. They don’t even have time to use the restroom in the morning and they face more issues with constipation. We promoted the fact that this breakfast could be prepared in just one minute and that it contained as much fiber as four bananas, and annual sales climbed from \3 billion to \10 billion.

以下省略

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0004240807

今回気になった単語はconstipation / ˌkɒnstɪˈpeɪʃən /です。con-が使用されているので共にの意味を含むものではないかと推測しました。『ジーニアス英和辞典』(第五版、大修館書店)では、「便秘」とありました。また、動詞形ではconstipate / ˈkɒnstɪˌpeɪt /となり「〈人〉を便秘にする」となります。

いつも私たちが日常で目にしている商品というは、開発者の方たちが様々な販売方法、戦略を考えたものです。その内容、手法になるほどと感じると共に、相手側に立って考えるというのは、とても大切なことなのでこれを常時心に刻みたいと思いました。(sixth-dan)

cf. My stool is hard./ I just can't pass stool./ I haven't done my number for a couple of days.