The Kean Fatt Product

Does product matter anymore? In an age of advertising and Nikes' and iPods', it's tough to find examples where product quality hasn't become a function of promotion wizardry i.e. where people pay good money for an item independently of the buzz/hype that surrounds it.

So I'm glad to report that I paid RM5.50 for a normal (not big) bowl of pork noodles this morning. That's something like RM1.50 more than the standard price.

But after a few spoonfuls, it's clear why my bowl cost more than 30% above the market rate. It's the same reason why, at 10.00am, there was already a dozen or so customers at any given minute parking all over the crammed road, ordering.

• the soup was tastier
• the meat slices were juicier
• the liver pieces were chunkier
• the gizzard was nastier (smile)
• the noodle portion didn't feel like a sushi-serving

The Place sucked (smack in the middle of cross-junction, see map). There was no Promotion (except for blog-posts like this and good'ol Malaysian word-of-mouth). The Price doesn't encourage demand. Even the People didn't seem very interested in 'customer relationship management'.

That's it. A great Product.