.png)
Over in Bekkersdal, east of Johannesburg, South Africa, there’s a very busy little farm.
Very busy, and very quiet.
Why the silence?
Because most people working on this farm are deaf and communicate via sign language. The Voiceout Deaf farming collective was created by a hearing impaired entrepreneur Matebogo Victoria as a way to help hearing impaired and deaf people gain agricultural skills with which to support themselves.
When I came across this little news tidbit, it reminded me of one question I use to help isolate the core concept animating a brand.
If you removed the main sense involved in your product, what would you have to highlight to sell it?
How would you sell:
This is a great exercise that helps you look beyond the externals and extract what really makes your offer unique and valuable.
For example, when selling the concert, you can highlight the vibrations of the drums, how people wave their arms in time to the rhythm, the lights swirling across the stage. And then you’ll realize that the ultimate pleasure of a concert is not the music - but the atmosphere. After all, if it was just the music, concerts would have gone out of style as soon as recorded music came out.
So then, as you advertised the concert, you could highlight the unique vibe and atmosphere, the kind of people who will be coming, the personalities of the performers - whatever it is that is really pulling people to the concert.
When selling the cookies, you could highlight how the texture feels as it moves over the tongue, how the smell wafts throughout the room, how it evokes memories of rainy afternoons at Grandma’s house. And you’ll realize that eating the cookie is a full-body experience that encompasses so much more than taste. So then, as you advertise the cookies, you could highlight the texture, the smell, the memories it pulls up - whatever it is that will really pull people to choose your cookie over the other cookies.
So take a good look at the product you want to promote this week. Take away the obvious sense. And see what lies behind that.
I'd love to hear what you come up with.