Students' zone - A selection of Box Cases

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Box case 5.3

Clarks – these boots are (really) made for walking

Clarks Shoes has been renowned for the quality and comfort of its products
for over 175 years. Three years ago the company was aware that the market
for leisure footwear was significant and growing fast, and decided to enter for
them a new market – walking boots. As this was a market about which they
had no detailed knowledge of customer needs, they worked closely with PDD,
a London-based market research consultancy. Product Manager Chris Towns
said, ‘I needed to understand the buying habits, end use and expectations of
our new consumer. Understanding the motivations of walkers can only be
guessed at from within the confines of your own office’.

PDD specialize in ethnographic studies and they conducted contextual
interviews with walkers in UK national parks, home interviews with people
who were members of walking and rambling clubs, and observed customers
buying walking boots. The insights obtained from this market research
allowed Clarks to clearly identify their target segments and, for these, to understand
customer priorities. For example, ‘comfort’, ‘fit’ and ‘safety’ were quickly
identified from interviews as important product attributes. However, the
contextual interviews in the national parks allowed the design team to understand
the real meaning of each of these terms and develop product characteristics
to meet them. Much of the development involved experimentation with
prototypes and this was conducted directly with walkers. Similarly, customers
in shops were observed to always feel the tongue of walking boots before they
tried them on. Therefore, it appeared that the tongue was a feature of a boot
that customers closely associated with comfort. This insight led the Clarks
team to produce a particularly well-padded tongue in their final product. The
Clarks range of ‘Active’ walking boots has been well received by both hobby
and professional walkers and ramblers and is selling well.