FEELINGS

Why did you buy an SUV and not a mini van? Why did you stay at a "chateau" on vacation and not a hotel? Why do you drink Fat Tire Amber Ale and not Zima? Why did you buy organic hand soap on-line and not the Kroger brand?

Feelings.

So says Seth Godin in his latest book All Marketers Are Liars. In his practical guide to marketing everything - politicians, cars, glasses, music and even church - Seth is very candid and seems not to even realize how profound he's being.

While the book is about marketing, for instance, it's revealed that marketing is inextricably bound to sociology. The way people think and behave and believe determines how they're sold ideas and things. While explaining this Seth, seemingly by accident, detonates a bomb of a sociological thought that's been echoing in my brain for days.

Tell me if this doesn't ring true to you:

PEOPLE SHOPPING TO SATISFY A TRUE NEED don't care about packaging, style or the pitch. If they're thirsty they drink what's wet. If they're hungry they eat what's available. If they're cold they take what's warm. The needy care about the facts: wet, food, warm.

OUR NEEDS ARE MET in the U.S. There are very very few people here, and none reading this blog right now, who truly have unmet physical needs.

WHEN PEOPLE HAVE NO NEEDS the job of the marketer is to exploit and create our limitless wants.

MEETING WANTS IS ABOUT FEELING, NOT FACTS. People in want don't care about the facts of the product as much has how it makes them feel. Cause a product to create the right feeling in a person and they'll lie to themselves and rationalize their product choices - creating "facts" to support them even.

Why did you buy an SUV, he asks, when a mini van causes less damage to the environment, is safer for children, uses less gas, costs less, does less damage to roadways, takes up less space, and is less likely to injure the driver and other motorists in a collision? Why? It made you feel something you wanted to feel. Tough? Wealthy? Successful? Big? Not like a taxi driver? It felt good to drive something not everyone could afford? Maybe, I concede. Definitely, Seth insists. The choice makes no sense on a practical factual level. It was a choice made on feelings.

Or how about Soy milk. I drink it. I buy it. It's found in the refrigerated section of my store. Why? Soy milk doesn't spoil. Until it's opened it doesn't need refrigeration - and there's some debate among my friends as to whether or not it EVER needs to be refrigerated. But cold milk makes me feel like I'm buying something fresh and refreshing. That's what I want to feel. The scientific facts don't matter. My feeling redefines reality.

Seth asserts and proves thoroughly in his book, though it's not the point of his book, that people like you and me with wants and no needs care more about how stuff makes us feel than we do about the facts. Style over substance. Feelings first.

Before we snarl from atop our high horses and wag our fingers at SUV drivers and soy milk drinkers consider this - I am:

WHY DO YOU EAT WHAT YOU EAT?

WHY DO YOU VOTE THE WAY YOU DO?

WHY ARE YOU FASHIONABLE?

WHY ARE YOU LISTENING TO WHAT YOU LISTEN TO?

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THE FRIENDS YOU HAVE?

WHY DO YOU LIVE IN A SPACE THAT SIZE?

WHY DID YOU GO TO THAT COLLEGE/NOT GO TO ANY COLLEGE?

WHY DO YOU READ THIS BLOG?

My point isn't that any of these choices we've made are "wrong" but that, in my own life at least, they've been made in part or totally based on what I want to feel and not on the facts. I have more thoughts on this, truly paradigm shattering thoughts, but for now I want to know what you think. (How's that make you feel?) Is this theory/law of Seth's correct? Is it true for you? Should we not factor our feelings into our choices at all? How much should the facts/reality be part of our important and not-so-important decisions?



(Special thanks to Matthew Smith and his marketing genius wife Alice for turning me onto Seth's writing.)