How often we confuse the reasons our customers buy products, how easy it is to get carried away with the technology, the newness, the features of the product, and never consider the real, usually unstated drivers of consumption.

Great marketing is always about the benefits a product brings to the consumer, and whilst the features play a role in delivering the benefits, consumers do not really care about features, they want what the product delivers for them.

 Defining the benefits is marketing, translating them into images and words consumers can relate to is advertising, and is only a tiny slice of marketing, at the end of the process.

Poor products, no matter how well advertised, do not succeed, great products with poor marketing that fails to identify the benefits of consumption, usually fail, but even poorly advertised products with clear and distinctive benefits usually find their way, because consumers are generally smart enough to make the connection. It is this last distinction that may appear at first glance to be semantic, that is often the biggest hurdle. This  great clip from Mad Men says it all.

Related posts:

Engage to persuade. Product brief is not a Design brief The 7 common features of successful websites What is a brand?