---
title: "Three Criteria to Determine a Good Product"
description: "Marketing begins before production! Instead of producing a product and then figuring out how to market it, you should design a product that sells well before production. Only by truly understanding this can you plan products effectively. This article proposes three criteria for a good product: visible, perceptible, and provable."
author: "王宏君"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2018-12-10"
language: "en"
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# Three Criteria to Determine a Good Product

> Marketing begins before production! Instead of producing a product and then figuring out how to market it, you should design a product that sells well before production. Only by truly understanding this can you plan products effectively. This article proposes three criteria for a good product: visible, perceptible, and provable.

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Marketing begins before production! Instead of producing a product and then figuring out how to market it, you should design a product that sells well before production. Only by truly understanding this can you plan products effectively.
Walnuts taste a bit astringent and not particularly good. What to do? Eat them with dates; the taste is great and nutritious. Thus, the hit product "Jujube-Walnut" appeared and swept the nation. In 2014, while serving a dried fruit company, I noticed many office workers had the habit of eating some dried fruits in the morning and afternoon. But when going to work or out, bringing only one type of dried fruit is nutritionally monotonous, and bringing several types is troublesome: a bag of red dates, a bag of walnuts, a bag of almonds, a bag of raisins—just thinking about it is tiring. Could we put multiple dried fruits in one grab bag? Therefore, I suggested the company launch combined dried fruits, with different combinations for different needs: energy packs for morning, beauty packs for women, and health packs for men. Over two years later, mixed dried fruits began selling well in the market.
Often, what companies need is not simple packaging design but overall product design. What materials should this product use? What form? What size? What packaging material? What should the packaging information highlight? This involves consumer preferences, price acceptance, target channels, display effects, competitive advantages, and a series of other factors.
From the consumer's perspective, what makes a good product?
I propose three criteria: visible, perceptible, and provable. Can your advantages and differences be seen? If not, can they be felt? If not, can they be proven? If your planned product meets one of these criteria, it is likely a good product.
Visible: Let consumers see the difference.
Fine clothes should not be worn at night; only visible differences are real differences. Can your product be intuitively seen as different? For example, different packaging forms, different colors, different shapes, etc. If your product looks different at first glance, it will naturally sell better.
Zhou Hongyi mentioned in a speech: Why did the first-generation 360 router fail? For instance, their first-generation router had no external antenna. The engineers said they used the latest internal antenna technology with better signal, but later they found users didn't buy it.
Let's think: Why didn't consumers buy it? Because users don't have professional equipment to measure router quality; they can only judge by eye. What users see is: routers with antennas should have better signal than those without. So for the second-generation 360 router, Zhou Hongyi made four antennas—two external and two internal—not for better signal, but to meet users' visual expectations.
With four antennas, consumers feel the signal is strong. Now routers claiming to easily penetrate walls on the market all have three, four, or even five or six antennas, all to let consumers visually see the difference. Companies are going all out.
When providing marketing consulting services for "Lüliang Mountain Pig," I planned the storefront in all plain colors: light yellow walls, white door header, pearl-white operating table, white cutting boards, and even the butcher's clothes were white.
Cosmetic brands and MUJI use plain colors, but pork stores don't. I used plain colors to let consumers visually see how clean my store was, forming a sharp contrast with other meat stores full of oil stains. The visible difference won consumer recognition; premium supermarkets, quality restaurants, and high-end kindergartens proactively sought cooperation.
Now consumers are highly concerned about food and want to see more, so transparent packaging is favored.
For example, transparent packaging for hot pot base stirred up the dormant hot pot base market; transparent packaging for millet lets you see the quality; many restaurants have open kitchens to reassure you.
The "Little White Milk" that became popular in 2017 is another example of voting with your eyes. Kedi's original pure milk used transparent packaging and quickly stood out among traditional pure milk. In less than a year, it turned a pure milk product into a "internet-famous milk" across the country. In 2017, the company's revenue grew 53.91%, net profit grew 41.56%, and sales of ambient dairy products including Little White Milk grew 65.8%. It can be said that this "visible" Little White Milk drove Kedi Dairy from a regional brand to a national brand.
As for multiple dairy companies launching Little White Milk in 2018 to compete for market share, that is a topic of how first-movers maintain their advantage, respond to followers, and transition from tactical to strategic advantages, which is beyond the scope of this article.
Perceptible: Let consumers feel the difference.
Whether consumer experience meets or exceeds expectations is key to forming brand preference. If you can't make consumers see the difference at a glance, it's best to let them feel the difference. This difference is not generic to the category but unique to your product. For example, having both spicy and clear broth for hot pot is not a difference, but if you do like Banu and make the best tripe, that is a perceptible advantage.
In 2014, while serving Tudaojia, I addressed consumer dissatisfaction with "beef sauce on the market that has sauce but no meat." I explored local Tujia food culture and proposed a new product design: don't grind the beef finely; cut it into larger chunks; put 120 grams of raw beef in a 240-gram jar of beef sauce; use a simple round wide bottle instead of a tall thin one, looking thick and honest. Then give the product cultural connotation by incorporating the Tujia traditional handmade "Tujia brocade" on the packaging, rich in folk customs, unique and eye-catching. What to call this product? I named it "Tujia Big Chunk Beef Sauce." "Big chunks of beef simmered over low heat, Tujia Big Chunk Beef Sauce" attracted many followers upon launch, with some consumers buying by the case. Letting consumers feel the difference, they will pay, but we need more care and patience to focus on consumers.
Water-soluble C100 first launched with lemon flavor, with the functional benefit of supplementing vitamin C. How much vitamin C? 100 mg. How many people have a clear concept of 100 mg? But the advertising slogan guides you to perceive: one, two, three, four, five, five and a half lemons of C, meeting daily vitamin C needs, Water-soluble C100. 100 mg immediately makes you perceive "five and a half lemons."
Provable: Be able to prove your difference.
If the difference can't be seen and the advantage isn't easy to perceive, then you need to find evidence to prove your advantage. Some products talk about sales circling the earth several times, proving how popular they are; more people's choice gives consumers a sense of security.
If you are selling bottled water, consumers can't see the mineral salts and trace elements you mention, and they won't feel refreshed immediately after drinking, so they can't taste the difference. What to do? You have to prove your difference. So Nongfu Spring made many ads proving they build factories at water sources, proving how good the water source environment is, and using pH test strip ads to prove their water is weakly alkaline and healthier for humans.
When serving "Dahuangdi" rice, I found that the rice industry has the phenomenon of blending new and old rice, making it hard to distinguish. Across the consumer market, most consumers worry about rice not being fresh when buying, and "new rice" has become a deep-seated need.
I suggested the strategy and appeal of "Dahuangdi, only produces new rice." New rice can be judged by looking, smelling, and tasting, but before purchase, the rice is packed in bags, making it hard to do so. How to reassure consumers it is indeed new rice? "Dahuangdi" has a complete national-level food traceability system, so I suggested using proof: "Current season new rice, full traceability guarantee," with the traceability code on the packaging and in ads, making new rice provable.
Advertising has an amplifying effect, but it is hard to change product flaws. Many products with good ads are not simply relying on advertising; they have already been endowed with hot-selling factors during product design. "Visible, perceptible, provable" is a method to create hot-selling products from the consumer's perspective, hoping to give companies a track to follow in launching new products.
Source: Sales and Market


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