All Marketers Are Liars

All Marketers Are Liars is based on the idea that we believe whatever we want to believe, and that it’s exactly this trait of ours, which marketers use (and sometimes abuse) to sell their products by infusing them with good stories – whether they’re true or not.

George Riedel has been telling a powerful story about wine glasses for ages. His company has been in the business of glass-blowing for over 4 centuries. Leading the family business in the 10th generation, Riedel introduced a special series of wine glasses, where different glasses are meant to bring out the best qualities of different sorts of wine.

He says that every wine tells his own unique story and the glass is the interpreter, which translates the message for the person who drinks from it. Scientific tests have later proven that there’s no difference between his glasses and others, but still wine experts and connoisseurs from all over the world swear that wine tastes better from a Riedel glass.

That’s the power of storytelling. It goes to the point where it changes the customer experience, just because of what people believe.

We live in a world where people buy what they want, not what they necessarily need. Most of us have bought a designer piece of clothing, sportswear, device or even food from a certain brand, not because of the quality (which is something we keep telling ourselves), but because of the way it reflects our beliefs and view of the world.

The reason you think a pair of Nike’s is high quality and justifies a steep $100 price tag in addition to making you look cool, when they really just cost $5 to manufacture (hint: Macklemore’s Wings tells a great story about those) is the way your brain reacts to new information. Like a frog can spot a moving fly by ignoring all static parts of his environment, our brains never compare new things to old things by considering all features. You don’t check whether your new iPhone can do the same things the old one could do, that’s a given, you only look for the features that are new, like the better camera, lighter weight or new exterior design. For each new feature you discover, your brain instantly starts to make up information that justifies it and leaps on to every bit of reasonable evidence it can find. That’s because our brains don’t like chaos and randomness. They thrive on logic. Have you ever thought your iPod is really smart, because it seems to play the same few songs you like over and over again, even when it’s set to shuffle? Well, it’s not, but a random order of songs does…