This week’s Observer magazine had a story on Joe Corre (the son of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren) co-founder of Agent Provocateur. In it he had a little provocation for traditional marketing theory and marketers who play by the rules…

“I’m not your average businessman, am I? I don’t think people in business are that bright as a whole. All the so-called rules of business have always sounded like a load of old cr*p to me. The customer is always right. Like f*ck he is. In my experience, the customer is nearly always wrong.”

I might not agree with the language but I do agree with the sentiment that the customer certainly isn’t always right. As another innovator  Henry Ford is oft quoted as saying, “If I’d asked the customer he would have said he wanted a faster horse.”

So Rule No 1 is the customer isn’t always right…