We are buying fewer pairs of jeans and more yoga pants, eating less gluten and more coconut oil. Trends are not simply a shift in behaviour, they are a sign of a change in the story we want to believe about ourselves.

When you develop a product, service or platform it’s not enough to consider how it tastes, works or looks, you have to think about how it will make your customer feel in the context of who she wants to believe she is. Even when the Athleta customer is not practicing yoga, she wants to feel like she’s akin to the kind of person who does.

What kind of person does your customer aspire to be?
How does that person act?
How can what you create help her to be more of who she wants to be?

We make things people want when we understand how what we make wraps around their story.

Image by Matt Madd.