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Lesson #1: Take Your Market Research to the Streets

Article Overview: Morita might have been the Chairman of Sony Corporation, but that did not mean he stayed cooped up in his office all day long, removed from the daily action. He enjoyed tinkering with electronics as a child, and nothing had changed in the years since. Morita took a constant and keen interest in the research and development branch of his company. In fact, in the early years, there was one product that particularly caught Morita’s attention.

Lesson #1: Take Your Market Research to the Streets

Morita might have been the Chairman of Sony Corporation, but that did not mean he stayed cooped up in his office all day long, removed from the daily action. He enjoyed tinkering with electronics as a child, and nothing had changed in the years since. Morita took a constant and keen interest in the research and development branch of his company. In fact, in the early years, there was one product that particularly caught Morita’s attention.

In 1979, Ibuka asked his audio department to create a stereo system that he could take with him on his many long flights overseas. The creative engineers created a makeshift device for Ibuka, which allowed him to play tapes for long periods of time. After showing the gadget to his Sony co-founder, Morita spent the following weekend tinkering with it. He took it home with him, took it to dinner, and took it with him golfing. That Monday morning, he showed up at work and announced that this gadget would, in fact, become a Sony product.

Morita saw promise in the portable sound system. He recognized that “young people cannot live without music,” and thought it would hit the markets running. Few others, however, saw what Morita saw. First of all, he was told, no consumer would buy a tape recorder that did not have the capacity to record. Secondly, market research suggested that the earphones would hold the product back.

Morita was told that not only would consumers find the earphones irritating, but that since they were also associated with hearing loss, they would never go over well in Japan, where deafness and hearing impairment are taboo issues. Morita began to wonder whether people would, in fact, want to listen to music by themselves, cut off from the rest of the world.

Despite the advice given to him by his marketing department, Morita chose instead to follow his hunch. He told Sony staff that they were going to create a worldwide culture of headphone wearers. In fact, he would later advise fellow entrepreneurs to avoid market research altogether, saying, “Carefully watch how people live, get an intuitive sense as to what they might want and then go with it. Don’t do market research.”

The newly named Walkman became the immediate hit that Morita had predicted. It hit the stores in 1979 without a single day’s worth of market research. From there, the company continued to follow their hunches in creating such innovative products as the compact disc and today’s Playstation.

Not everything Morita pushed through achieved similar success as the Walkman. His electronic rice cooker never got off the ground, while the company’s first tape recorder weighed over 75 pounds, and never found a willing market. Indeed, as Morita later admitted, “If you go through life convinced that your way is always best, all the new ideas in the world will pass you by.” But, Morita always learned the lesson.

“Don’t be afraid to make a mistake,” he said. “But make sure you don’t make the same mistake twice.”

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Article Tags: co founder, creative engineers, deafness, earphones, gadget, hearing impairment, hearing loss, hunch, keen interest, long periods of time, market research, marketing department, monday morning, rest of the world, sony co founder morita, sony corporation, sony product, stereo system, tape recorder, worldwide culture



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