Summarize Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Summarize - Essay Example Zaltman’s Theory and the Development of Zaltman Elicitation Technique (ZMET): â€Å"People give us only what we give them the opportunity to provide.† (Zaltman). Because of his marketing experience and interdisciplinary background, Zaltman was able to apply the idea that people respond with what is below the surface of language, thinking in pictures and memories when deciding what it is they want. He used his study in Nepal to support his theory, saying â€Å"Everything we see hides something else we want to see.† (Zaltman). With that in mind, he moved from the University of Pittsburgh in 1991, to Harvard Business School, where funding was provided for him to set up his ZMET site and staff it appropriately. ZMET â€Å"combines neurobiology, psychoanalysis, linguistics and art theory† (Pink, 1998) to bring out what people really feel about a product. Once this is established, then sellers have an additional, creative marketing tool. The example of the Nestl e Crunch Bar is a good illustration. The chocolate showed up as a metaphor for ‘time’, as the images provided related to the simple, easy-going days of childhood. The product brought back happy memories; this was the metaphor the ZMET process turned up. The same test discovered women’s feelings about wearing panty hose, that dogs were a metaphor for safety and security and that executives identified ‘customer-focused’ as â€Å"having integrity, caring about customers in an authentic way, being a company worthy of trust.† (Pink, 1998). Application: Zaltman’s projects are treated as individual tests, which have consistently delivered â€Å"metaphor-based insights† (Zaltman) He believed that the technique is not going to solve every problem for every company but that it does provide a creative addition to other market research processes. He pointed out that in the final analysis, it is up to managers to