Start with why

It’s What You Can’t See That Matters
“Gets your whites whiter and your brights brighter,” said the TV commercial for
the newest laundry detergent. This was the value proposition for so many years
in the laundry detergent business. A perfectly legitimate claim. That’s what the
market research revealed customers wanted. The data was true, but the truth of
what people wanted was different.
The makers of laundry detergent asked consumers WHAT they wanted from
detergent, and consumers said whiter whites and brighter brights. Not such a
remarkable finding, if you think about it, that people doing laundry wanted their
detergent to help get their clothes not just clean, but very clean. So brands
attempted to differentiate HOW they got your whites whiter and brights brighter
by trying to convince consumers that one additive was more effective than
another. Protein, said one brand. Color enhancers, said another. No one asked
customers WHY they wanted their clothes clean. That little nugget wasn’t
revealed until many years later when a group of anthropologists hired by one of
the packaged-goods companies revealed that all those additives weren’t in fact
driving behavior. They observed that when people took their washing out of the
dryer, no one held it up to the light to see how white it was or compared it to
newer items to see how bright it was. The first thing people did when they pulled
their laundry out of the dryer was to smell it. This was an amazing discovery.
Feeling
clean was more important to people than being clean. There was a
presumption that all detergents get your clothes clean. That’s what detergent is
supposed to do. But having their clothes smell fresh and clean mattered much
more than the nuanced differences between which detergent actually made
clothes measurably cleaner.
That a false assumption swayed an entire industry to follow the wrong
direction is not unique to detergents. Cell phone companies believed people
wanted more options and buttons until Apple introduced its iPhone with fewer
options and only one button. The German automakers believed their engineering
alone mattered to American car buyers. They were stunned and perplexed when
they learned that great engineering wasn’t enough. One by one, the German
luxury car makers begrudgingly added cup holders to their fine automobiles. It
was a feature that mattered a great deal to commuter-minded Americans, but was
rarely mentioned in any research about what factors influenced purchase
decisions. I am not, for a moment, proposing that cup holders make people loyal

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to BMWs. All I am proposing is that even for rationally minded car buyers, there
is more to decision-making than meets the eye. Literally.
The power of the limbic brain is astounding. It not only controls our gut
decisions, but it can influence us to do things that seem illogical or irrational.
Leaving the safety of home to explore faraway places. Crossing oceans to see
what’s on the other side. Leaving a stable job to start a business out of your
basement with no money in the bank. Many of us look at these decisions and
say, “That’s stupid, you’re crazy. You could lose everything. You could get
yourself killed. What are you thinking?” It is not logic or facts but our hopes and
dreams, our hearts and our guts, that drive us to try new things.
If we were all rational, there would be no small businesses, there would be no
exploration, there would be very little innovation and there would be no great
leaders to inspire all those things. It is the undying belief in something bigger
and better that drives that kind of behavior. But it can also control behavior born
out of other emotions, like hate or fear. Why else would someone plot to hurt
someone they had never met?
The amount of market research that reveals that people want to do business
with the company that offers them the best-quality products, with the most
features, the best service and all at a good price is astounding. But consider the
companies with the greatest loyalty—they rarely have all those things. If you
wanted to buy a custom Harley-Davidson, you used to wait six months for
delivery (to give them credit, they’ve got it down from a year). That’s bad
service! Apple’s computers are at least 25 percent more expensive than a
comparable PC. There is less software available for their operating system. They
have fewer peripherals. The machines themselves are sometimes slower than a
comparable PC. If people made only rational decisions, and did all the research
before making a purchase, no one would ever buy a Mac. But of course people
do buy Macs. And some don’t just buy them—they love them, a feeling that
comes straight from the heart. Or the limbic brain.
We all know someone who is a die-hard Mac lover. Ask them WHY they love
their Mac. They won’t tell you, “Well, I see myself as someone who likes to
challenge the status quo, and it’s important for me to surround myself with the
people, products and brands that prove to the outside world who I believe I am.”
Biologically, that’s what happened. But that decision was made in the part of the
brain that controls behavior but not language. So they will provide a
rationalization: “It’s the user interface. It’s the simplicity. It’s the design. It’s the
high quality. They’re the best computers. I’m a creative person.” In reality, their
purchase decision and their loyalty are deeply personal. They don’t really care
about Apple; it’s all about them.

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The same can even be said for the people who love to work at Apple. Even
employees can’t put it into words. In their case, their job is one of the WHATs to
their WHY. They too are convinced it’s the quality of the products alone that is
behind Apple’s success. But deep inside, they all love being a part of something
bigger than themselves. The most loyal Apple employees, like the most loyal
Apple customers, all love a good revolution. A great raise and added benefits
couldn’t convince a loyal Apple employee to work for Dell, and no amount of
cash-back incentives and rebates could convince a loyal Mac user to switch to a
PC (many are already paying double the price). This is beyond rational. This is a
belief. It’s no accident that the culture at Apple is often described as a cult. It’s
more than just products, it’s a cause to support. It’s a matter of faith.
Remember the Honda and the Ferrari? Products are not just symbols of what
the company believes, they also serve as symbols of what the loyal buyers
believe. People with Apple laptop computers, for example, love opening them up
while sitting in an airport. They like that everyone knows they are using a Mac.
It’s an emblem, a symbol of who they are. That glowing Apple logo speaks to
something about them and how they see the world. Does anyone notice when
someone pops open the lid of their HP or Dell computer? No! Not even the
people using the computers care. HP and Dell have a fuzzy sense of WHY, so
their products and their brands don’t symbolize anything about the users. To the
Dell or HP user, their computer, no matter how fast or sleek, is not a symbol of a
higher purpose, cause or belief. It’s just a computer. In fact, for the longest time,
the logo on the lid of a Dell computer faced the user so when they opened it, it
would be upside down for everyone else.
Products with a clear sense of WHY give people a way to tell the outside
world who they are and what they believe. Remember, people don’t buy WHAT
you do, they buy WHY you do it. If a company does not have a clear sense of
WHY then it is impossible for the outside world to perceive anything more than
WHAT the company does. And when that happens, manipulations that rely on
pushing price, features, service or quality become the primary currency of
differentiation.

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