For Sale: Smiles, and Tears (Oh, And Products, Too)
You've seen them. The commercials that make you blink back a tear. There's one now on for Cheerios that does it every time. A little girl asks her mom if she ate cheerios when she was little and the mom says yes. Then the little girl says it's like eating breakfast with Nana, and the mom is jolted, then teary, then smiles and tells the little one it is. This one hit home for me. Having lost my mom two years ago, I, too, was unprepared for the little girl to say what she said. I admit I teared up, too. Now smartplanet.com is saying that companies that produce these types of commercials sell, well, more product. "The ability to tell a compelling story, in human terms, isn’t just marketing happy talk. It actually increases the value of products, and ultimately, the price at which they can be sold," Joe McKendrick reports.. He quotes Ty Montague in an HBR Blog Network post, who says “In a world of abundance, what your product does for y...