Când aveți putin să citiți People Don’t Buy Products, They Buy Better Versions of Themselves. Nu e vorba doar despre marketing, ci despre cum branduri cunoscute ca Apple, Samsung și Starbucks au pășit pe urmele Pepsi, schimbându-și strategia de promovare. Nu au promovat produsele, ci au promovat un stil de viață atractiv, cool. Și tu poți fi cool dacă cumperi telefonul X, sucul Y sau mașina Z.
Și strategia asta e aplicată acum de majoritatea brandurilor mari, oamenilor nu le pasă de specificații, dar le plac poveștile. Nu cumpărăm produse ale anumitor branduri pentru a citi fișa tehnică, ci pentru că vrem să fim și noi ca actorii ăia faini din reclamele lor, vrem să credem că și noi putem fi ca ei.
For the first time in history, a brand decided to promote the type of user that purchased a product as opposed to the product itself. Beyond that, Pepsi promoted the idea of an entirely new generation, one free from the manipulative, consumerist messages being perpetuated by the mass media. (It was, after all, the 1960s.) This group would come to be known as “The Pepsi Generation.”
Apple employees will never show you how a product works, rather they will let you use it, forcing you to familiarize yourself with the product, yes, but more importantly, yourself in its presence. A diverse range of product options to choose from, after all, will never be as captivating as a homogenous product that turns you into a superhero — and Apple has the latter in spades.
Samsung learned this the hard way, dogmatically focusing as they did for the longest time on promoting the features of their products, as opposed to the person you could be by using them. Now they avoid talking about the speed of their processors or the depth of the blacks in their screens because 99% of people don’t care; what they do care about — selfishly — is what they will become — “makers, directors, creators,” in the words of Casey Neistat — if they use a Samsung product. The message? Be like us. The solution? Buy a Samsung.
