Trade‐Off details a simple and comprehensive principle for product adoption by consumers. The simplicity of this principle is brilliant and appealing. The author does a masterful job of moving you through dozens of examples to illustrate the enduring nature of his premise across time and products. The central focus is the trade‐off that consumers continually make between fidelity (authenticity, aura, cache, identity, novelty) and convenience (ease of acquisition, cost). Defining where your product is, or where it needs to be, in the marketplace with regard to fidelity/convenience will determine your product's success.
The trade‐off is described almost immediately with this quote attributed to Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix from 2005: “People are willing to trade the quality of an experience for the convenience of getting it, and vice versa” (p. 2).
This simple representation begins a review of the how this trade‐off has impacted the adoption and/or success of products across a broad spectrum of businesses. The examples offered in the book span nearly 140 years from Swamp Root in the 1870s to James Cameron's technology partner, Vince Pace, for the movie Avatar. The author includes, as a reference, a diagram of the Fidelity Swap, which is an excellent visual tool to review throughout the book.
Trade‐Off is divided into three main parts:
- 1.
The Fidelity Swap;
- 2.
Winners and Losers; and
- 3.
The Trade‐Off in Practice.
There is some minor duplication between the three sections, however; each section focuses on clarifying different applications of the trade‐off. The first part, The Fidelity Swap, is divided into four chapters that explain how the trade‐off works. Chapter 1, “The Fidelity Swap”, offers clear definitions to key ideas and terms used in the book. The second chapter, “Fidelity Versus Convenience”, is an excellent primer in determining the goal being strived for. The businesses cited often do not understand, or have forgotten, if they should be striving for convenience or fidelity. Chapter 3, “The Trade‐Off, the Belly and Mirage”, discusses the pitfalls made from poor planning and poor definition. The “fidelity belly” is a muddle of unremarkable products looking for a way out. Although not doomed to failure, these products require more work to break out. The “fidelity mirage” is the unattainable though often strived‐for point of high fidelity joined with high convenience. One example of trying to attain the “fidelity mirage” is described this way: “Convenience acts like antimatter to aura and identity […] The more convenient something becomes, the less that item helps identify its owner as someone who is special and unique” (pp. 52‐3).
Products which are ill‐defined as to fidelity or convenience will be poorly positioned on the fidelity swap and are destined for the “Fidelity Belly”. Chapter 4, “When Andy Grove Meets Trip Hawkins”, discusses how products can be so influential that they completely shatter the old market definition. This requires an entire new fidelity swap to be created that reflects the new market paradigm. A useful example is the camera phone and how that redefined the camera market.
Part Two, “Winners and Losers,”, describes in four chapters the good the bad and the ugly reality of products that succeed and fail. Chapters 5 and 6, “Super‐Fidelity” and “Super‐Convenience”, describe the “good” outcomes for products that achieve success by sticking to either convenience or fidelity. It also offers the “bad”, through cautionary tales of those companies that forgot their convenience or fidelity roots. Chapter 7, “The Worst Place to Be”, describes life in the “fidelity belly”. This no‐man's land for products is populated with innovative as well as middling products. What they all have in common is that they have yet to move far enough out on either the convenience or fidelity axes of the “fidelity swap” to be a breakthrough successful product. Emerging technology, market redefinition and/or product repositioning can all be leveraged to help push a product out of the belly. The “ugly” is found in Chapter 8, “The Worst Thing to Try”. This chapter details disastrous effects of trying to change direction from either convenience or fidelity and to shoot for the “fidelity mirage”. Starbucks is singled out for its disastrous foray into convenience and how it has had to work to re‐establish its fidelity image.
Part Three, “The Trade‐Off in Practice”, is an excellent guide for implementing the trade‐off for your company, your product or yourself. These five chapters detail how to look at and define your market and your product's place on the “fidelity swap” within that market. These chapters give the reader examples of how to and how not to develop a successful product strategy using the “fidelity swap”.
Chapters 9 and 10, “Innovation” and “Disasters”, largely focus on technology as the strategy to push a product into the lead position for either convenience or fidelity in the market. Caution is raised, however, about using technological advances as the strategy for product advancement on the “fidelity swap”. When the “fidelity swap” is ill defined or the technology implementation horizon is excessively long, focusing on technology may prove to be a challenging strategy.
Chapters 11 and 12, “Opportunity” and “Strategy”, examine the usefulness of the “fidelity swap” in determining where opportunities lie in a market. Defining the market, the key players in that market and where those players fit along the “fidelity swap” can identify opportunities for a product to advance. Strategies can then be developed to exploit that opportunity. Market redefinition, product repositioning, and technology can all be used to propel the product to the pre‐eminent convenience or fidelity position in the market. Academics should find Chapter 11, “Opportunity”, a particularly interesting and thought‐provoking chapter. The author identifies a significant imbalance in the “fidelity swap” for higher education, making higher education ripe for a major product innovation toward convenience. Chapter 13, “Personal Strategy”, develops the “fidelity swap” further as a method for developing yourself into a market leader. This can be achieved through redefining the market, increased use of technology, and relentlessly pursuing either the high fidelity or high convenience position in the market.
Trade‐Off is an easy and fascinating read. The fidelity swap principle is clear, concise, and understandable. Mr Maney does an excellent job of presenting mini case studies on the successful and unsuccessful implementation of strategy around the fidelity swap. He also presents interesting insights from many admired and visionary business leaders through the use of anecdotes from his many years as a business and technology columnist. Trade‐Off is a provocative book for anyone who is involved in product development and marketing. Any person challenged with product marketing, product development, or the marketing of themselves, would do well to consider where their product or where they themselves lie on the “fidelity swap”.
