Reading desire is essential to driving success in business. Our products must meet what consumers want. However, how do we know what they want? “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them,” argued the famous Apple founder Steve Jobs. In my post on January 18, I mentioned that we are not always conscious of the desires that exist in our minds. A simple trick to reading not so obvious desires is to ask, “Why?”

The question “Why” has an almost magical power. Why do people do the things they do? Before creating any marketing content, we need to ask, “Why do people use this kind of product?” Take tourism products. Why do people travel? Besides business trips, people travel to take a break from their routine. We constantly fluctuate between two conflicting desires: desire for stability and desire for change. Too much stability creates boredom, while too much change creates anxiety or even fear. Travel provides a safe way to experience change.

As a social media marketer, I specialize in tourism marketing. For over ten years, I have helped a leading Korean NGO create content to promote Korea to the world. In the past two and a half years, I also have been promoting United States tourism to Korean audiences for Brand USA, the USA’s official tourism promotion organization. The most common way to create global marketing content is to translate the content created for a domestic audience. The key to creating persuasive content is targeting. We know that a one-size-fits-all approach rarely works. For example, sending the same resume to different companies simply doesn’t work. Why would marketers use the same marketing content for different international audiences?

Obviously, we cannot create entirely different versions of the marketing content for every country. Enormous time and money would be wasted. However, a little tweaking of the domestic content can create a world of difference in its appeal to the global market – generating more likes, comments, and shares. An easy tweaking technique is to make the strange familiar and make the familiar strange – a creative idea generating method, introduced by William Gordon in his book Synectics. To promote tourism to international travelers, we need to make the strange familiar. Traveling to a foreign country can be nerve-wracking. We enter a strange land where people speak a different language and eat different food. We need some comfort from familiarity.

Using common experiences is a great way to add familiarity. Experiences that we appreciate are not all that different across cultures, such as spending time with loved ones, enjoying hobbies, and eating delicious food. There is no need to push too hard to find unique experiences to promote. Just see what people like to do in a promoted destination. And showcase the locals: what they like to eat and do, or where they like to go. Airbnb appeals exactly to this desire with its slogan, “Live Like a Local.” No one wants a tourist trap anyway.

[Picture] Example of Using Common Experience for Promoting Tourism: This Brand USA post generated 94 comments, 2.4k likes, and 99 shares.  The message was simple – Everybody deserves a break. Listen to music and relax in Nashville, Music City USA.

The same principle applies to other products. Promote common experiences, which will help people imagine themselves using your product. Why do people use your product? How do they use it? For example, people drink your tea to boost their energy or eat your sugar-free jam to live healthy. For foreign brands to compete with domestic brands in the global market, you need to do two things: (1) Assure that your product is as safe and reliable as local brands, and (2) show how its origin, your country or company, improves the consumer experience. Little tweaks will open big doors to the world!

Take-Away: Make the strange – foreign brands – familiar to appeal to global consumers.

• Reference: Synectics: The Development of Creative Capacity (William Gordon)