The deeper the problem you solve for people, the more they will value your business.
These words are at the heart of strategy.
Once again, we use problem loosely. A need, hope, difficulty, frustration, unanswered prayer. An itch which, often, people don’t know they have until you come along and soothe it.
Notice the alchemy. Intangible human emotions, values and ethics are converted into tangible, quantifiable business value. Here’s how.
What role can your product play in people’s lives?
1. Clearly, it must fulfill a purely functional purpose. It must solve a practical problem.
- Motor cars solve the problem of getting around. But all viable cars do this, so explore a little deeper.
2. How could your product matter more to them?
- A car which costs half the price of another is a basic problem a lot of people would like to have solved.
- At a deeper but still functional level, a car which is reliable and lasts longer is a problem which people would like to have solved – and they will be prepared to pay more for the solution.
3. Understand people better than they understand themselves.
- What matters to them?
- How are they influenced by the norms of society?
- What deep-seated need lies buried and unexpressed?
- What values yearn to be acknowledged?
- What archetypal forces drive them?
Interrogate your product, certainly, but interrogate people too. Cars are inextricably linked to self-image. This opens up an entirely new depth of needs which can be addressed. 
Volvo solves a ‘problem’ for people who would like to tell society, and themselves, that they are responsible family people. Those values run deep. As a result, they are willing to pay a premium – and they will champion the brand.
4. The deeper the problem you solve for people, the more they will value your product.
When only 2% of women in the Western world consider themselves attractive and 80% are uncomfortable with their bodies – and one of the reasons is the media’s manipulated portrayal of idealised beauty – that’s a sensitive problem waiting to be addressed.* When Dove addressed it with its Campaign for Real Beauty the results were immediate: sales of Dove products increased 600% in two months and sales across the brand increased 20% in the first year of the campaign.** Ten years on, Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty still makes women around the world feel understood and appreciated.
* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/21/dove-real-beauty-campaign-turns-10_n_4575940.html
** Gibbons, G. 2009. The social value of brands, Brands and Branding. The Economist in association with Profile Books: 54
5. Eternal truths Life is to be celebrated. Sure, Coca-Cola quenches your thirst – it is water which has been flavoured, sugared and chilled. But every time someone opens a Coke, the brand puts them in touch with something profound: the sweetness of being alive. Giving the Coca-Cola business one of the unfairest advantages ever.
6. Archetypal forces When is a cigarette far more than a cigarette? When it helps a man – grinding away in an office, meeting the soulless demands of an 9 to 5 job, paying his mortgage and bringing up a family – experience a sense of masculine independence, that’s when. It doesn’t get more archetypal than that – which is why the Marlboro cowboy helped a tobacco company, of all things, become one of the world’s most valuable brands.