On Salability
What makes for salability? "Find a need and fill it" is no longer enough. There are a hundred innovations to fill every need. "Create a need and fill it" becomes the rallying cry. "Here's my new gizmo, it will make you happy" becomes the essential message. It works for everything, from drugs to alcohol, gambling to sex, beauty products to self-improvement courses, cruises to sports cars, sports arenas to movie multiplexes, condos to offshore banking, and computer programs to high-tech toys. Things we never knew existed and that we could do perfectly well without are now an interwoven part of our lives.
The art of selling is the lubricant of commerce. Each layer of invented needs begets additional layers of needs to maintain and service the previous layers, like the miles of blood vessels the body produces as it grows. Each new need demands inventiveness, ever-greater novelty. Who would think dogs need sun visors? Yet the damn things sold like hotcakes in a craft show I recently attended. Thinking up gimmicks to extract money from the mark itself becomes a growth industry.
"Build a need and fill it." It's like the Internet where you can download free plug-ins and free browsers to get you ever deeper into the cyber-addiction.
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Kate
Jones' Viewpoint
