Does that seem like a goofy question? Don’t we already know why people buy products, or accept new ideas?

You might think, “Isn’t it obvious why people fill their physical and digital shopping carts with products?” Buyers either want or need what they’re buying. But what if it’s not always so obvious? What if there’s something else going on in the background? Something even smart people who study consumer behavior sometimes misunderstand?

Let’s check back in on the inner workings of McDonald’s. Their executive team decided on a strategy to sell more milkshakes. They tasked their marketing team to execute this new priority.

McDonald’s already held mountains of sales data. They had extensive financial and people resources. And so they dived into the task with enthusiasm, studying the problem in extensive detail for months.

McDonald’s conducted intensive focus groups, asking pointed questions of its “ideal” milkshake customers, who offered loads of suggestions for improvement. “Can you tell us how we can improve our milkshakes so you’d buy more of them? Do you want it cheaper? Chunkier? Chewier? Chocolatier?”

McDonald’s took time to ask the “right” questions, and listened with intention to its customers. Acting on the additional data they just collected, the company spent a fortune extensively reformulating their milkshakes in their food lab, and made a serious financial investment in advertising and promotion for a wide, national rollout.

And then . . . nothing happened. Sales didn’t increase, or decrease. Nothing changed.

McDonald’s asked their customers what new flavors and textures they’d prefer, and the company acted based on their customers’ feedback.

From their consumer interviews and sales data, McDonald’s created the perfect, composite ideal milkshake customer. But creating that persona, the “average” McDonald’s milkshake buyer, led them down the wrong path. The composite was so “average,” it was a distortion that didn’t reflect the true reality in the lives of actual milkshake buyers.

Love their food or hate it . . . McDonald’s marketing department is sophisticated and data-driven.

They had mountains of sales data:

McDonald’s was perfectly positioned to succeed. But this new initiative failed completely.

Why? What went wrong? What did McDonald’s overlook?

Clay Christensen is the author of the Silicon Valley classic, The Innovator’s Dilemma. This bestseller about disruptive innovation was cited by Steve Jobs, who said in his biography that Clay’s book was a major influence on his thinking. It’s also been praised by the Wall Street Journal and Businessweek, and is considered one of the six most important books about business ever written. The latest version now includes a foreword by Marc Benioff, cofounder and CEO of Salesforce. This is definitely not just another bland, boring business book.

A professor at Harvard Business School, Clay also founded his own consulting company. In the first chapter of his book, Clay talks about how his company decided to approach the issue from a different angle: what job arises in people’s lives that causes them to come to McDonald’s to “hire” a milkshake? What if consumers weren’t just “buying a product,” but they are hiring a milkshake to perform a specific job in their lives? Clay calls this the “Jobs To Be Done Theory.”

Armed with this new perspective, McDonald’s partnered with Clay’s consultants to interview its customers. So one day they stood in a local McDonald’s for 18 hours watching people: What time did people buy these milkshakes? What were they wearing? Were they alone? Did they buy other food with it? Did they drink it in the restaurant or drive off with it?

It turned out a surprising number of milkshakes were sold before 8:30am to people who were alone, not with their family. They didn’t stop to drink it in the store, they got back into their cars and drove off with it.

Puzzled, the researchers began asking these milkshake buyers “What job were you trying to do for yourself that caused you to come here and hire that milkshake?”

At first the milkshake buyers had trouble answering the question. So the researchers asked them “What else do you sometimes hire instead of a milkshake?” Pretty soon the researchers figured out these early morning milkshake buyers all had the same job in mind: they had a long and boring ride to work, and they needed something to keep the commute interesting. They weren’t really hungry yet, but they knew that in a couple of hours, they’d face a midmorning stomach rumbling.

They previously hired bananas, but they were gone too quickly. Doughnuts were too crumbly and left their customers’ fingers sticky, making a mess on their clothes and the steering wheel, while they tried to eat and drive at the same time. Bagels were often dry, and spreading cream cheese while driving is a hazard. One milkshake buyer admitted hiring a Snickers Bar for the drive, but felt so guilty about eating candy for breakfast that he never did it again.

But a milkshake? Turns out it took a long time to finish a thick milkshake with that thin straw. And it was substantial enough to ward off the looming midmorning hunger attack.

As one commuter enthused: “This milkshake. It’s so thick! It really takes me twenty minutes to suck it up through that thin straw. Who cares what the ingredients are — I don’t! All I know is that I’m full all morning. And it fits right here in my cup holder” — as he held up his empty hand. Turns out the milkshake does the job better than any of the competitors — which in the consumer’s mind aren’t just milkshakes from other fast-food chains but bananas, bagels, doughnuts, breakfast bars, smoothies, coffee, etc.

The researchers looked at the diverse profiles of all these milkshake buyers. They were obviously very different people but they all had one thing in common. They all had the same job in mind when they hired the milkshake: “Help me stay awake and occupied while I make my morning commute more fun.” Bingo!

What about customers who bought milkshakes outside this early morning timeframe? Turns out the very same customers buying at a different time of day were hiring the milkshake for completely different reasons, like creating an uncluttered time to talk with their child about whatever’s on their child’s mind, or to feel like a fun and caring parent.

There is a simple, but powerful, insight at the core of the Jobs To Be Done Theory: customers don’t buy products or services (or accept new advice); they pull them into their lives to make progress. Clay Christensen calls this progress the “job” they are trying to get done, and in this metaphor we can say that customers “hire” products, services or advice to solve these jobs. This is key to understanding why they make the choices they make.

Job = the progress a person is trying to make in a particular circumstance.

Thinking about cybersecurity advice:

Next Week: We’ll explore this topic from another helpful perspective. Whether we like it or not, people really do judge a book by its cover. So how does packaging for a physical product (or framing for a piece of cyber advice) make it more suitable for the types of jobs to be done?

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