Without fail, every initial meeting I attend, brands are desperate to understand why their product sales aren’t as high as they hoped. Immediately, they assure us of how good their product is. How revolutionary it is. How much stronger, lighter, more powerful, cheaper, more fashionable it is compared to that of their competitors. They are inherently obsessed with the utility yet don’t understand why consumers are not responding to their micro analysis. This particular approach isn’t necessarily wrong but perhaps misguided.

Let me introduce you to Jessica. She’s a typical American who makes a respectable living at a stable job downtown. Occasionally Amanda buys bottled water. Not because she is thirsty. Thirst, for the most part, can be quenched just about anywhere in the US. What she is really buying is convenience and / or piece of mind that it came from a clean source (looking at you Sochi). The purchase is predicated on want, not need. Consumers have everything they need. So when a person doesn’t really need something such as food, water, shelter, they care a great deal about the essence of the purchase; how it looks, feels, and the customer support on the other end. On the flip side, when you are starving, the food is more important than the packaging. Thankfully, starvation in our society is pretty rare. Matter fact, the world is richer than it has ever been despite the economic climate. Even those in this country who are deemed “poor” have at least one color TV in their home. As a result, everyone has what they need. Medicine excluded. If the only thing left to buy is stuff they want then they’ll buy the stuff which resonates with them the most. And this is precisely why we as a nation buy 1,500 bottles of water per second.

Is there a connection between the utility of a product and how it makes someone feel? Of course. More often than not, a consumer shapes his desires based on the utility which he heard from friends. He went to see Empire Strikes Back (poor bastard) because he heard it was good. He, like myself, would swallow nails for a new Nissan GT-R because of the Skyline legacy and performance. He hired a consultant from Knoxville because they dramatically helped another client.

It is natural for us to sell the utility of our product or service because that’s the easiest way to differentiate ourselves. Regardless if you have the best prices or high survey scores. Selling via utility is finite, thus the solution is irritatingly simply. Consumers don’t buy what you sell. They buy what they want. Create a want and the utility will sell itself.