In the Internet age, there is no shortage of innovative products with all kinds of cool features. Unfortunately, although many products have been on the market for many years, they have not been accepted by the general public. The products are good, but difficult to promote. Why?

One important reason is that new products or technologies can be far ahead of the competition, but their success depends on consumer perception.

Users often do not easily buy unfamiliar new products that are not well known to the public, because they do not know what they are, let alone what to do with them.

If a new product is too similar to other products on the market, people won’t be attracted to it. Why spend extra time updating software if the new version is very similar to the old one? For example, the new type of rice or new mineral water launched by Evergrande has not been a big success after years of promotion because it is too similar to existing products on the market.

So when promoting new products , what are some good ways to quickly enter the market and gain user recognition?

1. Classification

When a new product is launched, the first thing we need to do is to help users divide the product categories. Because if users don’t know how to classify a new product and don’t know what the product is used for, they won’t be able to judge whether they really need this product.

For example, if we want to promote kiwi fruit, we need to first classify it into the category of fruit so that everyone has a concept. Since it is a fruit, it is edible first and has certain nutritional value. The price should be similar to other fruits and not too expensive.

If we don't classify kiwi fruit into a category first, many people would not dare to eat it. After all, it looks ugly and furry.

Several years ago, Apple launched the Newton handheld computer, which was a forerunner of today's smartphones. Its design and appearance were like a computer and it also belonged to the computer category, but it eventually became a poorly performing product.

Several years later, when the iPhone was promoted, it was not classified as a computer. Although the iPhone’s various functions made it a small computer, Apple still classified it as a mobile phone, and it eventually became a huge success. .

Therefore, when we promote a new product, we first need to correctly classify it into categories.

2. Put on a familiar coat

When a new and unknown product suddenly appears, people often find it difficult to accept it because it is too unfamiliar. After all, throughout the history of human evolution, humans have always liked familiar things.

In 1886, after the first gasoline engine car was born in Germany, it began to appear on the streets of Europe. When people saw a car running on the street by itself without a horse pulling it in front, everyone was shocked. Americans in the country regarded this "devil car" as a symbol of urban decadence and issued a decree to restrict cars from taking to the road.

Because horses were afraid of this loud and disorganized "horseless carriage", they would often run away after being frightened, making the passengers in the carriage uneasy. Car drivers at that time were often ridiculed by coachmen, so cars were difficult to be accepted by users in the market at that time.

It wasn't until 1899 that a clever inventor came up with a solution that made cars more comfortable for both humans and horses. He installed a replica of a real horse's head, right down to the shoulders, on the front of the car.

This modified car looks similar to a horse-drawn carriage. When this type of vehicle is on the road, the probability of horses and passengers being frightened is greatly reduced.

If we see a horse head stuck on the front of a car now, we will definitely laugh out loud and think that this is really stupid. Although you would think people were ridiculous now, it is hard to imagine how horrified people were when they first saw cars.

Installing something familiar on the front of the car effectively reduces people's fear of this new thing.

When American Digital Video first introduced what we now know as the digital video recorder (TiVo), they faced challenges similar to those they faced when introducing the automobile. While this technology is innovative and has the potential to create a whole new market, it will require changing people’s consumption habits to succeed.

To help people make the transition and make it easier for consumers to understand the new service, American Digital Video designed the TiVo device to look like a black cassette recorder that can be placed under the TV or on top of the set-top box.

If you pry open this black square box, you will find that its internal structure is completely different. A VCR is like an old-fashioned film camera, in which the film is a long tape wound around a device and the video is recorded on the tape. TiVo is completely different.

As the name suggests, TiVo is actually a computer, with no film to wind up. So the company didn't have to make the device look like a VCR; it could have been in the form of a standard laptop or desktop computer.

Later, when promoting the iPhone, Jobs also vividly compared the iPhone to: a mobile phone + game console + TV.

Many of today’s digital operations are reminiscent of real-life operations in appearance and form. For example, you can save a document by clicking an icon, delete a digital file by dragging it into the trash, etc. Offline products also have many visual similarities, such as the imitation wood grain on the dashboard of high-end cars and the grill marks on the burgers eaten by vegetarians. All of these clever tricks are designed to make new things seem more familiar to our eyes.

More broadly, successfully introducing a revolutionary innovation into people’s lives often requires wrapping it in a familiar “cloak.”

3. Differentiation

For a new product, it is obviously not enough to just be familiar; it also needs to be differentiated. For example, cars back then were described as: carts that do not need to be pulled by horses. In this way, there is both familiarity and differentiation.

In other words, to successfully promote a new product, it needs to be both familiar and differentiated.

For example, as mentioned earlier, the American Digital Video Company decided to design the VCR into the appearance of a product that people are generally familiar with in order to make people feel comfortable with this revolutionary innovative product. By hiding this innovative technology in something that looked familiar to people, American Digital Video successfully used familiarity to make a differentiated product more desirable.

At the same time, incremental innovation can be made more innovative through clever design. When Apple released the iMac in 1998, it was a minor advancement in technology, but visually it was revolutionary. The iMac is not a cookie-cutter black or gray box; it looks like a piece of chewing gum and comes in tango orange and strawberry. The product was a huge success, with its uniqueness coming from design rather than technology, sparking a rush to buy it.

People never evaluate technology in its purest form; design and technology combine to influence consumers’ perception of a product. The combined effect will be best if the innovative products can be differentiated just right.

Author: Escape

Source: Taoxuzi (taoxuzi23)