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Think about how many times today you have acted simply because you did not know something. Maybe an unfamiliar charge appeared on your credit card and you immediately searched the company name. Maybe you heard a business term during a meeting and opened Google because everyone else seemed to understand it. Maybe your lawn suddenly developed brown patches, your car started making a strange noise, or somebody mentioned a restaurant you had never heard of. You recognized that so

Business students are frequently taught that people act in their own self-interest. Give consumers enough value and they will exchange money for it, which is certainly part of how markets work. But anyone who has watched a parent sacrifice for a child, a volunteer give away a Saturday morning, a donor support somebody they will never meet, or a professional mentor a young employee without expecting payment knows the story is incomplete. Human beings are also capable of acting

Your customers are not simply trying to own more things. Very often, they are trying to become someone—more capable, more confident, more independent, healthier, stronger, better informed, more skilled, more successful, or simply more comfortable being themselves. That distinction can completely change the way you position a product. Instead of asking only what the customer wants to purchase, you begin asking what they want to improve, accomplish, express, overcome, or unders

A twenty-dollar watch and a twenty-thousand-dollar watch can both tell you it is 2:15. That simple fact should immediately tell marketers something important: consumers are not always purchasing only the functional job of a product. Human beings care about how other people perceive them, and we routinely manage reputations, celebrate accomplishments, display affiliations, seek recognition, and care whether important parts of our identity are validated. Products can therefore

If you want to build stronger marketing, stop thinking only about the relationship between the customer and your brand. Sometimes the more powerful opportunity is the relationship your business can help the customer build with other people. That is the heart of belonging. Belonging is the desire for human interaction, relationships, community, and connection. When marketers understand it correctly, they can create products, campaigns, events, and experiences that strengthen r

Most businesses start their marketing in the wrong place. They start with the product, move to the features, come up with a catchy headline, shoot a few videos, buy some advertising, and then wonder why the market does not respond the way they expected. The problem is simple: your customer does not wake up thinking about your business. They wake up thinking about their family, goals, career, problems, relationships, frustrations, interests, ambitions, and the hundred other th