100 years ago was the height of the industrial age. US Steel, Standard Oil, utility companies like AT&T…
50 years ago was the manufacturing age. General motors, kodak Eastman, IBM, General Electric…
Today the biggest brands are not selling commodities.
They’re not even really selling physical products.
(And no, I’m not talking about digital products like mp3’s and streaming services).
Today, the most successful businesses sell experiences.
Feelings.
Think Apple, Tesla, Coca-coal, Louis Vuitton, McDonald’s, Disney, Starbucks…
Yes, Apple makes phones, but they’re really selling style.
Louis Vuitton makes bags, but they’re really selling exclusivity.
The same for all the companies above, and many others.
Not drinks, or cars, or hamburgers.
But style, community, belonging, prestige, nostalgia, happiness…
"People don't buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic."
Seth Godin
We don’t buy into brands through logic.
Logic comes later.
Facts are what we use to give ourselves the last little push to fully commit.
Facts are a way to justify the decision that we’ve basically already made.
The decision to buy in emotionally…
How brands get us right where they want us...
Ever lost track of time while reading a story?
Ever imagined a place so vividly, that you got startled after you finally looked up form the page?
“It was like I was actually there…”
Psychologists call this ‘narrative transportation‘.
Through stories, a seed can be planted in our brains.
The emotions and thoughts of the story are then turned into our own ideas and experiences.
We imagine ourselves in the story, it’s as if it was happening to us.
The story, becomes our story as well.
When we know and understand our customers deeply, their fears and desires and hopes and wants, the stories we tell can make it feel as though we’re reading their minds.
The more familiar and relevant the story for our customers, the easier it is for someone to lose themselves in the story.
If we can make it vivid as well, our brain become busy, we identify with the story, and we become immersed in a new world.
Totally engrossed in the story, we become emotionally engaged.
We become less critical, and we forget about counter-arguments and possible pitfalls, and we start believing what brands want us to believe; our beliefs can be either challenged or affirmed.
Myths and objections can be knocked down.
All the positives and privileges played up.
As Robert Cialdini explained in his masterpiece Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, when we focus on something, we attach greater importance to it.
But that’s no the most important part.
The most important thing is, once we’re engrossed in a story or paying attention to something, we’re no longer paying attention to everything else.
If we tell our story well enough, if we can touch the deepest emotions of our customers, the competitions dissolves.
We become the only game in town.
If we tell our story well enough, if we can touch the deepest emotions of our customers, the competitions dissolves.
We become the only game in town.
