One of my favourite TV shows as a child   was the 1960’s Batman series starring Adam West, Burt Ward, Cesar Romero and Frank Gorshin. I had the Batcape, the Batcar and just about every other Bat-thing,  and even today have  signed cheques and photo’s of stars of the series on my study wall at home. Sad, but true.

I also have a copy of the film that spun off the TV series, and it’s just great. One of the funniest scenes involves Batman getting lowered into the sea on a rope ladder attached to the Batcopter. I don’t remember why. He was probably trying to save the world from destruction as usual.  Anyway, when the Batcopter ascends, pulling Batman out of the water, he has what is quite clearly a rubber shark hanging from his right leg. Undeterred by this minor inconvenience, he reaches into his utility belt and pulls out a can labelled ‘Shark Repellent Spray’, which just happens to be there. A couple of quick squirts and the fearsome fish releases its grip and falls back into the ocean.

If  1960’s Batman was around today he wouldn’t need the repellent spray because the shark  wouldn’t come near him. He could  keep the animal at bay with a new device called the Electronic Shark Defence System,  a small box about the size of a pack of cards which attaches to the wrist of a swimmer, surfer, diver or anyone else going into the water. Like a caped crusader dangling from a helicopter, for example.  It emits an electronic pulse which is said to repel sharks by affecting the gel in their nose.

Ever since the film Jaws, the threat of being attacked by a shark has been very high on many peoples list of fears. And yet in reality, the risk is tiny. Just 100 attacks are reported world-wide each year, and the International Shark Attack file based in Florida put the odds of an individual being attacked at 11.5 million to one. That’s not far off the odds of winning the National lottery! And yet despite this, I can see this device selling very well. That doesn’t sound logical does it? Well it isn’t but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

Let me give you another scenario which may explain why. When you fully understand this, it will give you a massive advantage in creating, developing and marketing products to consumers that make money.

So you’re driving to the airport.  Do you feel safer now, while you’re in the car, or will you feel safer later, once you’re strapped into your aeroplane seat? If you said you’ll feel safer once you’ve got on the plane, then you’re in a very small minority. You see, it doesn’t matter how many times we hear that air travel is the safest means of getting around – that the odds of being involved in an air crash are one in eleven million – on an emotional level, most of us still feel like it’s much more dangerous than driving. That’s despite the fact that we  have around  a one in 5,000 chance of dying in a car crash, and are in considerably more danger driving to the airport than we are flying to our destination. Over one and a quarter MILLION people die on the worlds roads each year. The number killed on commercial air flights? Less than  a thousand.

Can you see the anomaly here, and the conundrum faced by entrepreneurs developing and marketing products?  The demand  for a product, often has little to do with the objective reality of a situation, because perceptions are so skewed.  If we just look at the raw statistics, a device designed to prevent shark attacks shouldn’t stand a cat in hells chance of succeeding. There’s just no real need for it. It’s a problem that only affects a hundred people a year, but the market if infinitely larger than that. Conversely, thousands  are killed on the roads each year.  Road accident prevention should be a red hot  commercial market, but it almost certainly isn’t.

The key word in all of this is emotion. Emotion transcends boring old facts, figures and statistics every time. You can churn out the numbers all day, and you can prove that there’s a logical need for a product, but if your target market doesn’t have an emotional reaction to a situation or problem, they’re not going to spend their money. Even being seriously injured or killed  as a result of a fall in your kitchen is very many times more likely than being attacked by a shark. But which event do you think people will spend money to avoid? One is highly unlikely but emotionally charged, the other is far more common but carries little or no emotional resonance.

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is to build their products and promotions around cold hard logic. They  see a  problem, find a solution and expect the world to beat a path to their door.  It’s an approach that would see you developing  a device to prevent kitchen falls, rather than one which wards off sharks. The need and danger is far greater.  But it’s almost impossible to get attention (let alone money) until you engage people on an emotional level. The manufacturers of the shark repellent device already had the job done for them by Hollywood. If that emotional connection isn’t there already, most of us have to find a way to create it through our advertising and marketing.

Contrary to what you may have been told, we don’t spend our money in response to needs – we spend it in response to wants. And for us to want something, facts are not enough. We need to be engaged on an emotional level with a product, and the level to which we  get engaged is often out of kilter with the severity and risks associated with the problem the product solves. We  underestimate the dangers of travelling by car and  of falls around the home, but overestimate the dangers of air travel and shark attacks. These perceptions affect us deeply at an emotional level, and in turn have a dramatic effect on where we spend our money.

If you want to make the world a better place, by all means focus on needs, logic and objective reality. But if you want to make money,  then wants, emotions and subjective perceptions should be the factors that guide your product and promotion choices.

Kappow!!! (As Batman might say if he was doing his own sound effects.)