Think this way

One of my favorite bloggers, Dear Jane, has made an excellent point here. I'd make it myself, but she's done such a good job already without my input!

Consider this our first lesson: Think like the customer. If you don't know how, what, why the customer thinks, find out.

http://dearjanesample.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/we-should-all-be-thinking-like-consumers/

This is what she has to say, "The biggest mistake Advertisers and Marketers make is to forget to think like a consumer. Instead they think like Researchers or Lawyers or Accounts. I don’t know why this happens, but I see it all the time. The talk will be all about the product and how we must absolutely tell the consumer about feature “x” and benefit “y”. With all the focus on the product, the consumer gets lost in the shuffel. No one asks the question “why do consumers want to buy this product”, it seems to be assumed that they will. We all need to remember WHY consumers buy things. They do not buy things because of the 20 item long list of features and benefits. They buy things because:
They need it
They like it
They can’t live without it
It makes them happy
It makes them feel/look attractive
It makes them belong
You know all those intangible, instinctual things that you can’t measure.
We also need to remember that consumers don’t really need us - I’m talking about both brands and advertisers. They were quite happy before we came along. We actually complicated things for them, with all our “brands” of toilet paper and pens. Who cares, it’s toilet paper. But yet we have to make them care and you can’t do that by talking about 3-ply sheets. (Okay what the fuck does 3-ply sheet mean anyways?) We need to speak to consumers emotions and desires. Which is why we have kittens and puppies and Cashmere in toilet paper commercials."