The Power of Polygraph: What X wants from Y: A new way of classifying drivers for the real world.

Many of you would know  I have developed a driver technique called Polygraph which compares what people say they want (or don’t want) to what they are actually attracted to (or not attracted to). I have showcased this technique at two national conferences (AMSRS) with my “What women really want from men” and “What men really want from women” studies, one of which has received three awards and both of which have received extensive attention in the press (See links on the right).

Polygraph: Compares Stated versus Derived measures of importance

But the great thing about these studies and the development of polygraph is it provides us a completely new way of classifying drivers which actually turns out to be very useful in the real marketing world.

Consider this:  Which product / brand in the market place can deliver on everything that is important and nothing that’s not: Is perfection a realistic and even sensible product aspiration?
Most product offerings are going to be strong in some areas and weak in others, and consumers generally trade-off between what they are looking for functionally against the emotional benefits, the price and what using the brand says about them etc. They are not necessarily expecting perfection!
Now this is where Polygraph can be helpful because Polygraph reflects the state of things in the real world of consumer, brands and marketing.  So rather than enlighten us on the ideal and the potentially difficult mission of aspiring and delivering our products and services to this standard – it instead can tell us where we must deliver and how we can delight, but also where our consumers may be willing to compromise and tolerate. The same goes for attributes that detract. A graphical representation of how Polygraph classifies drivers is shown below:

Polygraph classifies drivers into things that attractors and detractors – but more interestingly:

Attractors are classified into:
1.    Product or service aspects that we simply must have
2.    Product or service aspects we would like to have but may be willing to compromise on if other benefits are present
3.    Product or service aspects that we may not even be able to articulate but will delight us if they are present

Detractors can similarly are classified into:
1.    Product or service aspects that we simply do not want to have
2.    Product or service aspects we would rather avoid have but may be willing to tolerate  if other benefits are present
3.    Product or service aspects that are even more of a turn-off than we are able articulate and are therefore deal breakers