BMJ  2005;330 (28 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7502.0-g

Editor's choice

Winning hearts and minds

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

When the furniture store Ikea first started selling a limited range of flat packed furniture that customers would buy from a warehouse, carry home, and assemble themselves, few could have predicted its phenomenal success. Equally surprising, for different reasons, was the success of the television series The Simpsons, initially considered a big risk by the Fox film corporation and now the longest running cartoon ever. Both are examples of clever market positioning. The trick, says an article in this month's Harvard Business Review, is to find out what your customers expect from you—and then shatter those expectations in ways that lift you above the crowd and create whole new markets.

With Ikea, "reverse positioning" meant stripping out features piled on by traditional furniture retailers, such as discounts and free delivery, and then throwing in unexpected new features to delight customers and build brand loyalty: crèche facilities for shoppers . . . [Full text of this article]

Fiona Godlee, editor1

1 (fgodlee@bmj.com)


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