I read Seth Godin’s blog pretty much every day. A few days ago he was commenting on Apple’s new smart watch…

…And he came up with four questions that consumers ask themselves when they are thinking of buying something new (and expensive like wearable technology).

1. What does this remind me of? Consumers want to connect new to old, and to see if they are comfortable with that connection
2. Do people like me wear something like this? Because other people are our purchase compass
3. What story do I tell myself when I put this on? (e.g. this is the best technology going, my friends will really be impressed, I look good…because we have internal dialogues about the things we own – they tell us about ourselves
4. Do I want to be noticed or invisible? because some things are ‘badges’ and others are not

All good questions, all worth asking in Qual research!