If you read enough branding and marketing books, you tend to believe that the best way to brand a new business is by coming up with a brand new, totally unique concept that no one has ever thought of before. We all heard of USP’s (Unique Sales Preposition) and the word “unique” is uppermost in any professional branders mind as he goes about branding a business. Theoretically, the more thoroughly unique the idea, the better chance it has of making it as a brand name.
Though this makes for great theory and ideology, reality is very different. True, there are those that will be successful in launching a totally unique concept, but they are the exception to the rule. The best proof of this is the new invention companies that you hear advertising on the radio all the time. They promise to patent your invention and make you a multimillionaire. Sounds great, but the sad truth is that less than 1% of all inventions patented through these “invention kit” companies ever give their inventors royalties that exceed the initial outlay invested. Why is this so? Remember, the inventor was positive this new invention would make him rich. So, what happened? Why do the vast majority of new inventions fail miserably? The reality is that brand new ideas or inventions don’t sell well. Read that counterintuitive sentence again- brand new ideas don’t sell well- and therefore brand new inventions don’t take off well.
The primary reason ninety-nine point something percent of all new inventions fail is that in order for people to buy a newly invented product, they first need to need or desire that product. The question is, if life was relatively good before this product was invented, why should your customer now think they need or desire it? The obvious answer is that with rare exception, they don’t, unless you create that desire. We already described “the bar conversation” which is a powerful method of discovering true unmet needs and desires. However, creating desire where hitherto there wasn’t any, takes many years and millions of dollars of education/ marketing and even then there’s no guarantee it will take off. One of the greatest copywriters of all time- Eugene Schwartz once said “Do not try to create demand, it will tire you out”. It is difficult to condition people’s minds to need and desire a product or concept they previously never imagined.
However, there is a trick to create desire even where none previously existed and that is by associating your new idea to a preexisting one, which your customer already accepted as necessary. By correlating your new idea to one already lodged in your customers mind, he or she no longer feels the idea is frivolous and unnecessary. Since the idea already exists in his mind, just in a different form, the customer simply transfers his natural acceptance of the previous need or desire onto the product you are now offering.
