Last night, I wanted to follow up my first insights post on why we buy things because buying things is easier than asking for things with a post on how marketers can use this insight.
This is the format I plan to follow through the year. My being off consumption will force me to do new things, like couchsurfing, which will give me insights into why we consume. I’ll share these insights in the form of really cool graphs supported by real-life case studies on how can marketers use these insights.
We buy things because it is easier to buy things than ask for things.
As children, we have to ask for everything we want (or even need).
When we grow up, start making money, we find out that we don’t have to ask for anything anymore, because we can always buy what we want.
Over time, we become so used to buying everything we want that we forget how to ask for anything.
For instance, for more than seven years now, I haven’t really asked anyone for anything, without offering an immediate or delayed quid pro quo.