🟢 How far can you lock in customers? The HP case

After about 25 years in various positions, I'm still surprised that executive teams would consider that taking customers hostage (politely referred to as 'locking in') would be a sound strategy. I cannot count the number of persons I've met and sometimes work with that would refer to the "Nespresso strategy"(*) as the pinnacle of strategy. Get customers accustomed to a cheap but efficient product and make them depend on it so much that when they need refills or consumables to keep it going, they're locked in, and you'll gauge them.

For the last two decades, the once renowned Hewlett-Packard company, now just "HP," has been synonymous with crappy printers with steal-you-blind ink recharge schemes. It's so bad and so deeply ingrained in their own market subconscious that just a few weeks ago, they felt that casually having fun with it would be OK...

I present you the "Made to be less hated" campaign: