How To Maximize Sales No Matter What You Are Selling, Part 1

Don’t Fall for ‘Product Delusion’

Every business is selling something… a product or service (or both).  And how that brand speaks to consumers about their products or services typically determines how effective they are at selling. 

Some brands spend a lot of time and money talking about the features or benefits of their products or services.  They believe that superior products or services win the market by default. Companies with this mindset pour resources into crafting the “best” product or service offering, assuming features and benefits translate directly to sales. We see that kind of advertising in everything from software to cell phones and from financial services to Internet Service Providers.  One look at the tag lines, ads, and commercials and it’s clear that their sales and marketing efforts are focused on promoting the quality and elements of the product or how it benefits the buyer. 

Then there are other companies that do not focus on selling features or benefits.  Their brand marketing paints a very different picture. These brands look to forge an emotional connection with consumers.  Their main focus is not on the quality, value or benefits of their offering.  Instead, they want their products or services to resonate on an emotional level with consumers’ desires and aspirations.  Their job is to be memorable and that’s best influenced by how their brand makes customers feel.

Which approach works best to generate sales?  Let’s think about a mundane product like potato chips.  Some makers focus their ads on the product’s features or benefits.  They might focus on the ingredients or process used to make their chips or on how eating chips benefits customers.  Others wouldn’t do that at all and instead try to influence buying behavior by connecting with the consumer on an emotional level in order to leave a lasting impression.  Which would generate more sales?  Let’s put this to the test. 

Consider Pringles.  Pringles is the third largest potato chip company in North America with $1.4 Billion in sales and 15.4% market share in 2023.  They, however, definitely do not market Pringles with a focus on features.  They don’t say:  “Pringles are made from the same powder as instant mashed potatoes and formed into crisps.”  It’s a good thing they don’t because that sounds gross.  And they don’t focus on the benefits such as how Pringles — made from processed vegetable oil and sodium and low in fiber – satisfy cravings for fat and salt.  They don’t say:  “Pringles has more salt and grease so your cravings are temporarily satisfied.”  That would likely turn off even the most avid junk food lovers.  Instead, Pringles’ marketing refers to them as “newfangled potato chips” and focuses on their shape and packaging.   What they do say is that:  “Pingles snack is stackable and comes in an easy-to-store tube, instead of a bag, so fewer break.”  They don’t even call them potato chips, because they aren’t actually thin slices of real potatoes.

What is Product Delusion?

Why does Pringles try to connect with buyers to seem cool and innovative instead of talking about how tasty Pringles are?  Because they aren’t falling for the alluring fallacy of “product delusion”.  That helps explain why the third largest “potato chip” seller doesn’t even produce potato chips but rather potato crisp snacks.  What their snack is made of doesn’t even matter.

Notwithstanding, many small and mid-sized businesses do fall for this misleading marketing notion referred to as Product Delusion.  Product Delusion is the misconception that features and benefits alone will propel a product to success, neglecting the emotional connection that truly drives consumer behavior.  It is a pitfall that cripples marketing strategies and hinders brand growth.

Here’s the truth: people don’t always make rational purchasing decisions. They buy based on what resonates with them, what tugs at their heartstrings, and what sticks in their minds. This is where brand marketing comes in, not to extol a product’s technical prowess, but to create a lasting emotional impression.

Imagine if all homebuilders marketed their product, namely houses, by their features and benefits.   They would say:  “Our homes are made of real wood, solid concrete blocks and other materials, all placed expertly to be sturdy.”  Or they might focus on the benefits and say:  “Our houses will protect you from most weather and will keep you and your stuff safe from theft and harm.”  But neither of those pitches are very compelling.  For one thing, all other new and used homes for sale can say exactly the same thing since the differences in homes built by the top 10 builders vary by less than 3%.  So selling home features and benefits is not very compelling. 

Instead, most successful homebuilders focus on how a home makes owners feel and the lifestyle they will live.  Case in point.  The second largest builder in the US, Lennar Homes, marketed the homes in one of their communities with an ad that read:  “A beautiful home is like owning beautiful art, except you can live in it.”  Another ad read:  “Two perfect communities.  One perfect life.  Yours.”  That ad was promoting a community called “Perfectville.”  And another Lennar ad for one of their golf communities read:  “Live like a Champion.”  Lennar’s marketing focused on the kind of lifestyle their communities provide — picturesque, luxurious, relaxed – and how their customers will feel… safe, happy and successful.  None of the brand messages say a word about features (concrete block construction) or benefits (better than renting).  They show photos of happy people living their best lives in professionally-decorated houses; not images of construction workers building safe structures.  That’s because they understand that the goal is to be memorable, and the best way to achieve that is by pulling on heartstrings.

Likewise, no one would expect a product like Coca Cola to be advertised as a sweet, brown and fizzy beverage.  Coca Cola does not offer an exhaustive list of product features and persuasive stats about how well it serves a consumer’s drinking needs. It never offers a convincing price discount in its ads. And they absolutely do not provide a fact-heavy white paper all about the features or benefits of Coke or have headlines that read:  “95% of thirsty people agree that Coke solves their thirst problem.”  Coke ads go heavier on polar bears, happiness and kindness than product specs. They prime audiences with delightful stories that help them remember the feeling of enjoying a refreshing Coke.  And they have distinctive colors and unique brand assets that have been honed and owned over decades.  Coca Cola ads are personal and either fun or very moving, reflect culture, have unifying threads but are different yet always simple.

Why do they advertise soda this way?  They understand that most competing products – Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Royal Crown, etc — are practically identical.  Indeed, they are all sweet, brown and fizzy beverages in the soft drink category and have almost all the same features.  The difference between Coke or a competitor being remembered in a buying situation is the advertising and branding, not the 3% difference in features. 

The Disconnect Between the Product / Service and the Purchasing Decision

Here’s the truth.  Human decision-making, particularly when it comes to purchases, is far from purely rational. People are driven by emotions, memories, and the narratives they weave around products. Research by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute reveals a surprising statistic: in high-involvement purchases like financial services, 47% of customers simply stick with their existing provider. This highlights the power of brand familiarity – the brand that comes to mind first often wins.  And, of the 53% who actually shopped around, they only considered an average of two choices and 75% of them chose their existing bank for the service.  This holds true for other kinds of purchasing decisions as well.  The purchasing decision was not based on reason and logic. 

Sadly, companies often fail to see the power of creating a brand that sticks. Advertising is not about showcasing features; it’s about building a unique identity that resonates with the target audience.  Advertising is the investment companies make to promote brands that come to mind more quickly in buying situations, helping to avoid competitive pressure and allowing them to maintain pricing power over time. 

For those not convinced that being remembered is more valuable than being better, consider Herbert Simon’s concept of “satisficing.”   Herbert A. Simon won the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics in 1978 for his work on organizational decision-making.  A complex systems’ pioneer, Simon had spent a lifetime evaluating how decisions are made in complex situations characterized by computational intractability or by a lack of information.  In other words, he was looking at how decisions were made when the best solution was not at all obvious.  Simon researched buying situations in which the product or service solution was complex and information was incomplete.

For such situations, Simon made an interesting discovery: most people don’t even attempt to make a perfect decision. Instead, most people settle for a decision that is “good enough.” Simon thus coined the term “Satisficing” to describe how most human decision-making works.  People find a satisfactory solution for a realistic world.  When presented with complex or abstract choices, people seek to save energy by not exploring every available option. Instead, they are ‘satisficed’ to find a decision that is just good enough and save the energy needed to handle other pressing issues.  Pursuing the perfect product takes way too much effort for something that is only “slightly better.”   So, for a company to try to make a product or service better in order to sell more makes no sense, especially when it is so much easier to make an emotional connection with the customer.  A company falling for product delusion is more irrational than their consumers’ decision-making process.  As Jeffrey Gitomer put it, “Don’t go for the hard sell.  Go for the heart sell.”

Business leaders are well advised to remember that.  The best product is typically the one consumers already know. In other words, the brand that is most easily remembered is the brand that is bought.  The moral of the story is simple.  People will go to great lengths to avoid cognitive load. Simple stories, heuristics, characters and jingles are the best way to train the brain to remember a product or service.  Features and benefits are nice but they aren’t going to convince anyone to buy it.

Stay tuned.  Next week, we look at more ways to maximize sales no matter what is being sold.

Quote of the Week

“Selling is about a transference of emotion, not a presentation of facts.”
Seth Godin

© 2024, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.

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