Do we buy things? Or do we buy feelings?
There’s an aisle at the store dedicated to water bottles. A water bottle aisle. There’s an aisle for bread. An aisle for small household appliances. An aisle for kid’s toys. And then a whole aisle for… water bottles?
When did this become a thing?
The cheapest water bottle on this aisle is seven bucks, and then eight steps over, at the other end of the row, are bottles that are nearly fifty bucks. Fifty bucks for a container that carries water. It doesn’t make water – it doesn’t even have water in it when you buy it. It just has the potential to carry water. At fifty dollars you might assume the water bottle has built in Bluetooth or something, but you would be wrong. It’s just a simple empty container.
When I was growing up we didn’t have water bottles. We had used Dr. Pepper bottles that we would rinse out, fill with water and take to soccer practice. It did the job. It always had just that little hint of Dr. Pepper flavor still in it, like the sparkling water drinks before they were cool.
I must confess; I bought one. I am now the proud owner of this water bottle. (I am not sponsored by Igloo) It was $15 bucks. Not fifty bucks – but not the cheapest bottle either. And in truth – I didn’t really need a water bottle to begin with – but here it is and my fifteen bucks is long gone. The bottle is a part of my life now. Our life… I can’t help but ask myself why did I spend fifteen bucks on a container that can potentially hold water?
It’s easy to focus on features.
If you compare the features of this bottle to all the other water bottles – they’re all pretty much the same give or take. Sure some are bigger or smaller, some have straws or large mouth openings, and they come in every color; but when you really boil it down they just carry water. That’s all they do. This is why I believe we don’t buy water bottles. When we purchase one of these we are actually buying something else entirely.
Catch the feeling.
You go out, you get in your car, you take a drive to the national forest. The air is crisp. The trees are losing their leaves and they crunch beneath your feet. You have your backpack tossed over your shoulder and you’re on the move. You aren’t in traffic. You’re not sitting at your desk. You aren’t on another unnecessary Zoom meeting. You’re not buying groceries or vacuuming your rug. You’re not endlessness scrolling useless social media or trying to find something worth watching on Netflix.
You are here – and it’s just you and nature as God made it. You can feel yourself breathing a bit harder. The air feels crisp and fresh. Your heart beats quicker. You have sweat on your forehead and you feel alive. You feel energy. You feel the stresses of life slipping away. You are an adventurer. You are an explorer. A mountain conqueror. A trail blazer. An outdoorsman.
And right now, at the top of the rock you just climbed, you need water. And fortunately for you, you have a water bottle. This bottle. You could care less about its special features or how many ounces it holds. It is refreshing and after you take a sip and you set the lid back on the bottle you feel refreshed and ready to keep going. Keep living.
In this moment
You are the kind of person who needs to own a water bottle.
Why did you buy the fifty dollar bottle over the seven dollar bottle? Because the fifty dollar bottle can keep up with your adventures. It’s sturdier. Ready to take more damage. It’s every bit as tough and durable as you are. This bottle represents you as a person. When people see you with this bottle they know the type of person you are; that you mean business and that fifteen minutes from now you could be anywhere in the world because you go wherever the adventure of life takes you.
Hang on a second.
Seriously, it’s just a stupid water bottle and there are many many more just like it. Ten years from now this bottle will probably be in a landfill somewhere and you will have moved on to another one. Or maybe you’ll be living in space with Elon – who knows.
See, we don’t buy things out of our logic. Logic would tell you – ‘hey stupid, it’s just a container for water. Save your money, find an empty Coke bottle, and get after it.’ There’s no chance on Earth your logic is going to justify spending fifty bucks on a container for water. It’s stupid.
But we don’t buy things out of our logic. We buy things out of emotions.
Emotions are tricky little things. Emotions talk to us in that deep Morgan Freeman voice. They say, ‘Hey buddy, you want to be the guy in the woods right now with sweat on your forehead conquering the mountains and when you do that you’re going to need a tough-as-nails water bottle to quench your desperate thirst. And when you are at your office and this water bottle is sitting beside your MacBook while you’re stuck in another pointless meeting – it will remind you that your life is short and that nature is always calling. This water bottle is going to help you get out more. Do more. Be more. It is going to change your world. And all of this can be yours for fifty bucks.’
Now, that’s a good feeling.
But right now, you are in none of those places because you are standing on the water bottle aisle at the store. But you could be there in nature really soon, and you might need to make sure you have the water bottle situation figured out. What a steal. You’d be an idiot not to buy this. So you choose a bottle, put it in your cart, and that is why we buy water bottles. We buy out of our emotions and then we justify our purchases with our logic.
What does this mean for product marketers?
Don’t focus on selling your features.
Features are great, and there is certainly a time and a place for them. Your potential customer however is most likely not searching your brand with a feature in mind. They are searching for a solution to a problem they are trying to solve. If you aim your marketing toward the feeling they will achieve once they have fixed their problem with your amazing product you will see way better conversion results.
Choose one feeling to chase with your marketing.
I didn’t even know what a ‘VSCO girl’ was before I started researching water bottles for this post. If you don’t know what one is go ahead and do a quick search. I’ll wait.
If you want to be a VSCO girl and fit in with that crowd you are going to need a water bottle and the brand you are going to need is expensive. It’s the price of admission. But the feeling of belonging to a group, the feeling of identity ownership; these are tremendously powerful feelings and ones that will cause young girls to drop quite a few bucks on a bottle.
Differentiate your feeling from your competitors.
There are a ton of water bottle brands right now and many differentiate themselves from the others by focusing on a specific feeling; adventure, belonging, the unknown, toughness, etc. You might have a great product but if you haven’t identified your feeling, you may have a problem.
On that same note, if you find your product in a group of products all dialed-in to the same emotion, then you may need to rethink your product positioning. What feelings are overly saturated in your market and what feelings are being overlooked?
