The Best-Selling Product in the World

by MarsDorian

Whatever you think it is, you may be surprised by the answer. It’s a special kind of product – the one that everyone can create and that won’tt cost you or your audience ANY moolah. Yet it has the power to influence people in ways you couldn’t even imagine.

Here’s where I’m coming from:

I have looked at my recent work (content and cartoons), and I can’t help but following the urge to punch myself in the face. The stuff I do is partly slick and polished, and some of it is even well-written (at least for a non-native English writer). But it lacks something that costs me both traffic and engagement, something that humans crave more than iPads and jellybeans.

Something that I consider the most important product in the world:

wait

wait for it

wait…here

Every video that goes viral, every book series that sells like crystal hotcakes, every personal brand that becomes (internet-)famous makes YOU FEEL IN A SPECIAL WAY .

A Mercedes-Benz sells like overpriced hot shit because it makes you feel in a way that a Toyota won’t.

An Apple product gives you a stylish well-being that you rarely get from other electronic products.

Those are works targeted at your brain, stimulating parts of you that even your Kama Sutra schooled partner will never trigger. Ooooh yeah.

This can be a negative or a positive feeling – it doesn’t matter. We humans CRAVE the whole spectrum of emotions – it’s more addicting than Crack/Cocaine sprinkled with Angel Dust made in the Lord’s personal lab.

And you know what ? The emotional effect is PURPOSELY created into the” product”:

The images, the story, the design – they are all created in a way the marketers want YOU to feel. That’s why I believe that the product IS the emotion.

And it’s time to put more more E-fucking-MOTION into our work again. And that means:

more personal story, more RAW-ness and more natural weirdness. Genuine useful freakishness with endless fire inside.

Your takeaway

Whatever your target market is. Whatever your product will be . If it doesn’t evoke an emotion – if it doesn’t make the owner feel something special, it’s not going to sell well.

If you forget that, then you can forget about your biz, too.

Let me ask you this: how in the hell will you include some SWEET-ass emotion in your next writing/product/service ?

I wanna know and learn from you.

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Tagged as: best-selling, Branding, emotional, marketing

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Anonymous

I think a good start would be to share an experience that lead you to that product or idea. Showing an emotional connection to something helps other identify with your idea.

For example…Apple tell stories of passion, doing the unthinkable and reliability that hit your creative sensibilities.

Mercedes puts you in an experience where you CONTROL power and elegance…I think thats pretty neat.

Personally…I try to mix humor with the desire to provoke change.
- http://www.marsdorian.com/ Mars Dorian
  
  YESSSS using a personal experience is the way to go ! That’s why I want to bring my own events and feelings into the overall style – something GENUINE and DEEP FROM THE HEART !
  
  I think provocation + humor is A KICK_ASS COMBO !
  - Milan
    
    I recently started re-branding myself (I’m a graphic design freelancer), but for more then a year I couldn’t really choose which direction to go to.. On one side, there is “clean & pompously professional look” (with risks of looking like every other graphic designer lately logo-wise and copy-wise, and with benefits of getting more “generic” work ) , and on other side there is “creative professional with a sense of humor that is willing to do the craziest things” ( with risks of getting less work, looking not-so-professional to “older” clients, with style that will appeal mostly younger-willing-to-take-a-risk clients and a more personal copy that will convey the way I express myself in real life – not some overly sugared generic/cheesy copy, but with benefits of getting more challenging/creative work). After much thinking I decided to take the second and more risky route – and to be honest the direction I’m going to is mostly ( if not entirely ) inspired by your blog ;) I decided that I’m exactly that second person, no matter how much I try being the first one for the sake of getting more jobs – I love being challenged, I love working under pressure and I love seeing (and being proud of) the results of all the all-nighters I pulled :)
    
    English is not my native language so sorry if some of this sounded confusing.. I guess I wanted to say: Thank you Dorian, for giving me that push I needed :)
    
    TL;DR My logo will be a gentleman in a suit with a t-rex head with monocle and top hat, riding a unicorn :D I don’t want to shamelessly promote myself here, but if you want to see parts of this concept I’ll give you a link to my fb fanpage ;)
    - http://www.marsdorian.com/ Mars Dorian
      
      shamelessly promote ! It’s ass-kicking that you get inspired by my work – that’s what I WANT TO ACHIEVE: Inspire people to create awesome shit.
      
      I’m glad you have chosen that way – it may be harder in the beginning, but you’ll be able to create memorable and profitable career while the mediocre designers WILL VANISH into oblivion !
      
      SHOW ME THE LINK
      - Milan
        
        Link is http://www.facebook.com/impsbl :) The concept/tagline is that nothing is impossible – especially when it comes to creativity. So in future, I plan to make all kinds of crazy photomanipulations like the one on the cover and offer them as free wallpapers (with link to my site, of course). It will take time but finally I have a proper direction and motivation.Thanks again! :)
http://theonramp.com/ Amber Goodenough

This totally made me smile. Is that an emotion? I agree with you. Make people feel. I’m writing sales copy today, so this was perfect timing. I’m gonna make those suckers weep. Wait, no…not weep. Get excited and buy! Yeah, that. Great post!
- http://www.marsdorian.com/ Mars Dorian
  
  Make that sales copy so emotionally epic people WANT TO LICK YOUR PRODUCT OFF THE SCREEN.
http://twitter.com/Nunzio_Bruno Nunzio Bruno

I know haven’t been in your comments much lately and really that’s my loss. Really intense post because sometimes we are so focused on how perfect we can make something we lose sight of what feelings it eventually illicit – if any. I know I’m working my way back from that with Financially Digital and even starting designs on some tshirts and merch that will get people feeling :) hopefully laughing a bit but definitely feeling.
- http://www.marsdorian.com/ Mars Dorian
  
  Nunzio ! Welcome BACK my lost brother !
  
  Merch ? For real ? I want to see that – yesss. put in some EMOS my friend. We humans dig that stuff.
  
  SHOW ME THE MONEY…eh…LINK !
http://youtube.com/user/tommyisastrategist Tommy Walker

Love it ( see look, I can emote too)
David Mark Brwon

Mars, this is a good reminder. For me personally, I think the cycle of my own emotions (revved up and then depressed about going no where) gets in the way of the content at times. It is hard at times to not let the piss and vinegar seep through into what I’m creating.
- http://www.marsdorian.com/ Mars Dorian
  
  hey David, I think it’s more the emotion you want to evoke in your potential customer / client. That’s at least what I’m aiming for – creating a special emotion ( in my case funky- over-the-top edu-tainment etc.). And that’s how I design / craft my blog posts – all in favor of that EFFECT.
  - David mark brown
    
    I like your vibe for sure. I shoot for a sort of optimistic paranoid satire. (I use parenthesis all the time.) if I get negative it comes across as whiny.
Jhendry3

I am getting quite old and recently thinking everybody is becoming more and more the same, look the same, dress the same, eat the same foods and everything has been re-hashed and done before, computers are taking over the art and crafts. Maybe there is a market for people like myself who want’s something different. It’s time we encouraged young people to go back to the arts and crafts and use simple materials not computers, make things from natural sources, cook with natural foods and be encouraged at school to put their ideas into motion, never mind how silly anybody thinks they are. What would happen, would we be able to cope without electricity, could we make fire?, could we survive? We should all learn how to survive if we have no electricity. I am actually trying to think of a product or service I could offer with all the above thoughts or emotions it would create
- dragzz
  
  Hmm that’s interesting, but unfortunately i think too many generations have passed on the opportunity to turn back in time, speaking as a younger dude i think we are too lazy haha