I once walked the length for Bourke Street behind a young man in a hurry heading towards Southern Cross Station. His backpack was slung over one shoulder and a designer shopping bag in the other hand bumped his knee as he walked revealing the Christian Louboutin logo. When we both stopped at the lights I couldn’t resist asking him what he’d bought. The shoes, he told me were a gift for a girlfriend he was trying to “win back”. The gesture had to be unforgettable.

Christian Louboutin is one of the most successful shoe designers in the world, selling more than half a million pairs of shoes a year. A pair of Louboutin’s will set you back between $395 and $6,000, their distinctive red soles are a marketing coup.

The root of the designer’s success is twofold. Firstly he knows who his customer is, and importantly who she is not, he doesn’t make shoes for “women who play bridge in the afternoon”. Secondly, he watches what she does and understands the role of his product in shaping her perception of herself.

Louboutin once said, “When a woman buys a pair of shoes, she never looks at the shoe. She stands up and looks in the mirror, she looks at the breast, the ass, from the front, from the side, blah blah blah. If she likes herself, then she considers the shoe.”

The opportunity to go deeper and gain valuable insights into our customers behaviour is open to each and every business. Those insights we observe can transform innovation, service and marketing.

How much time are you devoting to understanding how your customer’s actions drive their buying decisions?

Image by Adrain Scottow