Chris Meledandri Quotes

There just doesn't seem to be a market for something with aspiration anymore.

Marketing is a very good thing, but it shouldn't control everything. It should be the tool, not that which dictates.

I don't really follow market research. In the end, I respond to my own instincts.

We make decisions based on what we feel in the moment.

To study consumer behavior is to explore human nature at its most fundamental level using the modern world as its backdrop.

I go by my gut feeling.

Buying involves decision-making. It's a performance activity, like sports or acting.

Sometimes I'll trust my gut more than my head. Logical information might lead me in one direction and my feelings in another. Whereas I would have followed my head ten years ago, now I'm as likely or more likely to go with my gut feeling. It's ironic - you'd think the opposite would be true as you move to the top but it's not.

Every corner of the public psyche is canvassed by some of the most talented citizens to see if the desire for some merchandisable product can be cultivated.

I've done really well on one core principle which is, I think I have an intuitive ability to understand consumer behavior more than the average bear, and I'm not scared to bet the farm on that gut feeling.

One of the things I've probably absorbed when I was in business school - and didn't know I was learning it - was about life cycles, that things begin, and they peak, and then they decline. So whether you look at life cycles of fashion, or you look at life cycles of things that people buy, designs, everything is in a life cycle. Getting out of the apparel businesses and into beauty and lingerie, those were very big bets, but they were very deliberately thought about and tested over time.

It had always made sense to me to build a business based on what people really wanted, rather than guess what we thought they might want.

We learned that a product doesn't sell just because you're trying to do good in the world. You still have to have a healthy distribution, a good marketing strategy, and price the product properly.

In the opening to the Mary Tyler Moore Show Mary's in the supermarket, hurrying through the aisles. She pauses at the meat case, picks up a steak and checks the price. Then rolls her eyes, shrugs and tosses it in the cart. That's kind of how I feel. Sure I would have liked things to be different. But, 'roll of eyes' what can you do? 'shrug' I threw the meat in my cart and moved on.

Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.

Experience taught me to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper.

Your heart has to let your head know what it wants.

It is the new and different that is always most vulnerable to market research.

No production without a need. But consumption reproduces the need.

Doing business is all about providing a good product or service to your customers. A good businessman is he who knows that what is successful today may not be so tomorrow. Technology changes so fast, and so do people's needs and wants. That's why it would do well for a businessman to know how to adapt to change. He must constantly reinvent the business, or it won't last.

Wisdom consists in knowing what not to want as well as what to want.

What we found was that of the people who stopped when there were 24 different flavors of jam out on display only 3% of them actually bought a jar of jam whereas of the people who stopped when there were 6 different flavors of jam 30% of them actually bought a jar of jam.

You always go by your gut. That's the best you can do. You go by what you feel, and you say yes or no based on what it inspires in you.

A friend told me to listen to my heart. Another friend told me to listen to my gut. Maybe I need an autopsy, because right now my colon is kind of iffy.

People were actually 6 times more likely to buy a jar of jam if they had encountered 6 than if they encountered 24, so what we learned from this study was that while people were more attracted to having more options, that's what sort of got them in the door or got them to think about jam, when it came to choosing time they were actually less likely to make a choice if they had more to choose from than if they had fewer to choose from.