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What the milkshake was hired for

Why customers choose the shop across the road, and the question that finds out · 14 min

A fast-food chain asked customers what they wanted in a milkshake, changed it, and sold no more. Then a researcher watched one restaurant for a day: forty percent sold before breakfast, to commuters driving alone. What they were really buying, how Transsion built phones around it, why Microsoft's Zune chased the wrong rival, and two questions for your own customers.

Takeaways

  • In a story Clayton Christensen told for years, a fast-food chain learned that about forty percent of its milkshakes sold early in the morning, to commuters driving alone. They were not buying dessert. They were hiring something to make a dull drive pass and keep hunger away until noon, and its real rivals were bagels, doughnuts and bananas.
  • Jobs to be done is a lens, not a tested law: it comes from cases and interviews, not trials. It earns its keep when it changes who you think your competitor is. Transsion built phones around what African users were trying to do; Microsoft's Zune chased the iPod's features while the job moved into the phone.
  • Something to try: ask three recent customers, or three people who chose a competitor, what they were trying to get done the day they bought, and what they stopped using to make room.

Chapters

  1. Forty percent before breakfast0:17
  2. The job1:44
  3. A phone hired for three jobs3:54
  4. The player that chased5:46
  5. A lens, not a law7:43
  6. The day they bought9:41
  7. The answer11:17

References

  1. Christensen, C. M., Anthony, S. D., Berstell, G. & Nitterhouse, D. (MIT Sloan Management Review) — Finding the Right Job For Your Product(2007)
  2. Harvard Business Review Store (record of the MIT SMR article) — Finding the Right Job for Your Product(2007)
  3. Nobel, C. (Harvard Business School Working Knowledge) — Clay Christensen's Milkshake Marketing(2011)
  4. Christensen, C. M., Hall, T., Dillon, K. & Duncan, D. S. (Harvard Business Review) — Know Your Customers' "Jobs to Be Done"(2016)
  5. Christensen, C. M., Hall, T., Dillon, K. & Duncan, D. S. (book excerpt, StartupNation) — Disruptive Innovator Clayton Christensen Illustrates the Jobs Theory(2017)
  6. Apple Books (publisher record, Harper Business) — Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice(2016)
  7. Christensen Institute — Jobs to Be Done Theory(2025)
  8. Harvard Business School — Clayton M. Christensen, Kim. B. Clark Professor of Business Administration, Acclaimed Author and Teacher, Dies At 67(2020)
  9. Xinhua — China Exclusive: China's Transsion phones find success in Africa(2017)
  10. Xinhua, carried by China Daily (page meta credits Wu Xiaopo) — China's Transsion phones find success in Africa(2017)
  11. IDC — Africa's Smartphone Market Surpasses Feature Phones for the First Time in Q1 2024(2024)
  12. Body, P. (CKGSB Knowledge) — Tailored Technologies: How Transsion came to dominate the African phone market(2025)
  13. Nyabiage, J. (South China Morning Post) — Chinese-made phones are calling the shots in Africa as they beat global giants Samsung and Apple(2024)
  14. Microsoft — Microsoft to Put Zune Experience in Consumers' Hands on Nov. 14(2006)
  15. Apple — Apple Presents iPod(2001)
  16. Apple — Apple Reinvents the Phone with iPhone(2007)
  17. Mackie, K. (Redmond Magazine) — Microsoft Ends Zune Hardware Production(2011)
  18. Bishop, T. (GeekWire) — Robbie Bach's four startup lessons from Xbox and Zune(2012)
  19. Haslam, K. (Macworld) — Ex-Microsoft exec: 'We shouldn't have taken on Apple with Zune'(2012)
  20. Griffin, A. & Hauser, J. R. (Marketing Science, IDEAS/RePEc record) — The Voice of the Customer(1993)
  21. Griffin, A. & Hauser, J. R. (MIT Sloan School working paper 3449-92) — The voice of the customer(1991)
  22. Hauser, J. R. (MIT OpenCourseWare course note) — Note on the Voice of the Customer(2005)