At the end of the day, people buy products and services based on perception not the “best product.” This applies to both B2B and B2C environments. I hear a lot of pushback on this premise all the time, particularly in technology markets. It’s quite funny. Yesterday I met with someone who spent ninety minutes going on and on about how he doesn’t need marketing because he is developing a superior product to anything out there. This was particularly interesting since he called me to see how we could help him with marketing.

The simple secret is that when you market to the mind of a human being, the mind makes decisions based on perception. Whether I am buying a router for my network (B2B) or clothes to wear (B2C) my decisions are made based on the perception I have regarding certain brands. Perception is formed based on marketing messages and experiences. This is very difficult for some people to accept. People like to think they can’t be fooled by marketing and that they are way too smart for such frivolous tactics.

The truth can be a harsh reality. Let’s look at Cisco. Way back when (10+ years ago), Cisco built its brand by becoming synonymous with a new category of product called “router.” If you said router, nine out of ten people would say Cisco. The fact of the matter was that Cisco didn’t have the “best router” – at the time, a company called Wellfleet did. However, through great marketing, Cisco captured the minds of everyone — customers, media, Wall Street, etc. — and became the leader in the category. Moreover, they went on to leverage the positive attributes, loyalty and association they had in the router category to do phenomenal brand expansion work. Now they are synonymous with “infrastructure for the internet” or “the human network” or whatever. The point is they took the positive perception built around a single category and leveraged it to expand into something bigger.

Another fun example occurred repeatedly when I taught “Marketing for Entrepreneurs” for five years in Babson College’s MBA program. US News and World Report consistently ranks Babson #1 in the country for Entrepreneurship. Suffice it to say the students are very bright. In spite of their academic standing and outstanding professional achievements, I was always stunned, semester after semester, at how little people knew (or refused to accept) about marketing.

In the first class of every semester I had the same experience. I would start the class by talking about how people make purchase decisions for products and services based on perceptions that were formed as a result of marketing. Every semester without exception, some “wicked smaht” (as we say in Boston) student would loudly disagree with my premise. “I always buy the best product,” he would exclaim with a bit of disdain for what he viewed as a lack of intelligence on my part and a superior intelligence on his part. “Really,” I would chuckle. “Where did you buy that bottle of Poland Spring?” I would ask. “At Seven Eleven,” he would respond with obvious pride in anticipation that he was going to be able to prove his professor wrong in the first class. You could almost see him wallowing in his self-glory. “So when you opened the refrigerator door at Seven Eleven and didn’t pick out the Seven Eleven brand of water which was twenty-five cents less, why did you choose the Poland Spring?” I asked with obvious bait to my tone. There was never a response, but a lot of squirming in seats. “I hate to be the one to tell you, but bottled water is the most homogeneous product on the planet…it’s water…there is no such thing as best water.” Silence usually followed.

The message to marketers in all segments is to make marketing as much of a priority as product development. The “best product” rarely wins on merit alone and it’s no fun to be beat by something considered inferior. The company that does the best job capturing the mindshare will beat you every time. Perception rules.