Impossible. Ridiculous. How can it be?

The holy grail of brand stardom is great quality that gets talked about by customers. Yet, there are 3 case studies when it proved detrimental to sales. This is when innovative (or underhand and unethical) measures were brought to play to boost sales.

Case study 1:

Crocs came face to face with a unique challenge in the early 2010s. Their product quality was so good that people didn’t need to replace their crocs for many many years. They needed to find a solution fast, or the company ran the risk of going under. What did they do? Dilute their product quality? Certainly not!
They innovated and introduced charms for their crocs. Those ‘charming’ trinkets that you can attach to your crocs. Now, the buyers could have multiple crocs and personlise them as per the usage. Sales skyrocketed.

Case study 2:

Incadescent bulb industry experienced a sudden plunge in their sales in the early 20th century. They found out that the reason is the exceptional quality of the bulbs which makes them last a long long time. The entire industry collectively decided to downgrade the quality of the bulbs to ensure quicker replacements.

Case study 3:

Tim Cook and Apple acknowledged in December 2017 that they had implemented software updates that deliberately slowed down the performance of older iPhone models.

It’s anybody’s guess what could be the reason behind this underhand move.

Case study 4:

Closer home, the National Green Tribunal banned cars above 15 years on the roads of Delhi/NCR. On the face of it, the reason was to reduce the emission of green house gasses, but let’s consider 2 simple points: 1. Can the same objective be achieved by stringent pollution control norms and stricter punishments for violating those norms? I know of many car owners who take such good care of their cars, it’s impossible to assume that their cars pollute.

2. What about the greenhouse emissions of producing more cars and transporting them to the car showrooms of Delhi?

No wonder, many believe that the hidden reason is the lobbying by the automobile industry to boost the sales of their vehicles which won’t be replaced otherwise because of better quality to comply with road worthiness norms.

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What’s your take on this issue? If you faced a similar dilemma with high quality, what would be your approach? Do leave a comment.