The world outside the water bottle

A friend engaged in marketing for many years. He used a very vivid example to sum up the essence of his many years of experience. It is a story about water bottles:

For example, you have a water bottle on hand that needs to be sold. Its cost is 1 dollar. How do you sell it?

If you only sell a water bottle, maybe you can only sell it for 2 dollar at most; If you sell a water bottle of the most popular style, maybe it can sell for 3 or 4 dollar; If it's a famous brand water bottle, it may sell for 5 or 6 dollar.

If the water bottle is said to have some other functions, it may sell for 7 or 8 dollar.

It is also possible to sell the water bottle for 10 to 20 dollar if it is packed with a high-grade package.

If this water bottle is used by a celebrity and connected with a historical event, carelessly, one or two hundred dollar is also needed.

The same water bottle, the world inside the water bottle, its structure, content, function and so on are still the same, but with the change of the world outside the water bottle, its value is constantly changing.

Advertising, marketing, market analysis, product packaging, in the final analysis, are all solving a problem: What exactly do people need?

Where is the value? Is it inside the water bottle or outside the water bottle? Perhaps one of the characteristics of human being is that he has imagination and thought.

All kinds of human behavior, even if it is quite utilitarian, will more or less integrate reality and thought. The need of things and dreams, the need of interests and the need of feeling have long been integrated into a complex chain of cause and effect.

It is impossible for people to buy houses just for living, they also buy a sense of belonging and security; people can not buy clothes just for the cold, they buy more confidence and image; when buying TV, they buy desire to communicate with the outside world; when buying furniture, they buy an imagination of a warm life.

The world outside the water bottle will always be much larger than the world inside the water bottle.