Brands were listening to the voice of the customer long before that phrase became part of the marketing lexicon. As far back as the late 19th century, Crayola, for example, looked to students and teachers to determine what products to develop and produce.
The company was founded in 1885 by cousins Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith. Binney’s wife, Alice Stead Binney, was a school teacher and became a consultant of sorts. “She was kind of the muse behind a lot of what they did,” explains Vicky Lozano....