Making people want
your product
When showing kids, puppies and girls does not cut it
There are a lot of products we use daily that are completely unexciting. Think of the last time you got excited about a tooth brush, or a traffic light? How can you get people interested in using your product that is boring and just serves its purpose with no bells and whistles attached?
While studying marketing at the engineering school I was taught that marketing is “needs engineering”. When you translate a want into a need — you win. A need sounds stronger and more urgent than a want. Buying a need product seems more justified, sort of an obligation that has no relationship to your mood or desire. Want on the other hand is recreational, something you would like to have, but if you don’t get it, it’s not a big deal.
A good ad may have nothing to do with the product it is advertising, yet as long as it is memorable and invokes certain feelings the job is done. A person may not consciously recall the ad a week later, but subconsciously the brand stays in the brain and when a trigger moment comes up it floats up where it’s needed. Take this Smart ad for example.
It is brilliant how it illustrates a transformation of something boring and necessary into something desirable and fun. No one wants a traffic light, yet a need for it is pretty clear. A problem of the traffic light is that people often ignore it. This ad shows how you take a problem, flip it 180 degrees and turn it into a solution, something that is hard to ignore and you don’t want to ignore. Adding dance music and making Ampelmännchen (German: little traffic light man) dance would have been enough, but the ad goes even further. A booth has been set up where passers-by can animate the sign that normally tells people to ‘stop moving’ into a sign that tells people to ‘move like me’ by broadcasting in real-time dance moves from the booth onto the traffic light.
Make me feel I need something I want is tough, how about making me want something I’d hate?
The widespread of smartphones is good news to the likes of Apple and Samsung competing for our wallets, so we can glue our attention to these internet connected pocket screens we carry around everywhere. This fast smartphonification of the masses that happened over the past five years caught many unprepared.
Let’s talk about classrooms. While smartphone as a tool that can be used for good and illustrate otherwise a boring narrative, oftentimes it ends up being a perfect distraction. It is easy to imagine, that parents and educators are not so thrilled about use of smartphones in classrooms, yet feel helpless at doing much about it. As the history constantly teaches us, something that is taken away becomes more desirable and this way or the other finds a way to come back.
Almost daily people tell me about their startup ideas and oftentimes they don’t know what they should do next, in other words, what steps are needs in turning that brilliant idea into a successful startup. Recently I was approached with a following problem and finding this validation below is a good indication that the need is there and in this lucky instance so is the solution.
As a teacher how do you get your students to volunteer their smartphones out of the classroom and at the same time not being hated for it?
Meet Mitch Gardner and Rob Richardson - students at California State University at Chico who may have an answer for you. They have developed Pocket Points — an iOS app (I hear Android version is in the works) that rewards students for NOT using their smartphones in class. The longer a student does not use a phone during class time, the more points he or she accumulates. These points can be exchanged in local coffee shops for a free bagel, or an ice-cream for example.
Pretty ingenious if you ask me to take something a client needs, an end-user hates and make it into a win-win. These guys and many more like them have done it. Yes, it takes creativity and determination, but it is doable and it doesn't have to come with a hefty budget, though that wouldn't hurt, or would it?
