Marketing With Purpose Kit: Finding the Human Truth Behind Your Brand

**SPEAKER_2** (0:03)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad expert.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:17)
Welcome back to the Bliss Business Podcast series, Marketing With Purpose, our series, exploring how to embed deeper meaning into everything your brand does. I'm Stephen Sakach, joined by my co-host, Tullio Siragusa and Mike Liwski. Hey, guys.

**Tullio Siragusa** (0:35)
It's good to be back.

**Mike Liwski** (0:37)
Yeah.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:37)
So today's episode, what's that?

**Mike Liwski** (0:42)
So good to see you again. Glad to be back.

**Tullio Siragusa** (0:45)
Yes. Pump day.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:47)
Yeah. So today's episode is a big one. Finding the human truth behind your brand. So what is a human truth? Why does it matter in marketing? And how do you uncover the real emotional drivers that make your brand matter to people? Let's dig in, guys.

**Mike Liwski** (1:06)
Yeah. So to start with this, a human truth is essentially a universal insight that speaks to people. And it speaks to their needs, their fears, their hopes, even their desires. And so it's not just really about the demographics of who you're trying to speak to. It's about the emotional relevance to them.

**Tullio Siragusa** (1:28)
It's exactly that moment when your audience thinks, yeah, that's for me. It's the insight that connects your product or service to the deeper part of someone's identity. It's beyond the features, beyond the benefits. It's that resonance. It's like, that's for me. They're talking to me. That's that moment of truth.

**Stephen Sakach** (1:50)
Yeah, we talk about this a lot. It's that it's what transform your brand from a product into a relationship. And I think that's key because when you're rooted in something emotionally resonant, people don't just remember you. They feel you. That's kind of the difference here. So let's let's dig in a little bit more.

**Tullio Siragusa** (2:07)
OK, so let's make this practical. So here's an example. A feature is an app that tracks your water intake. Nice feature, right? The benefit, a benefit is you'll stay hydrated and feel better. But the human truth is you're trying to feel in control of your health in a chaotic world. That's the breakdown.

**Mike Liwski** (2:32)
Yeah, and that's exactly it. That's the difference, right? The human truths, they get really to the root of what people are really trying to solve in their lives and what they're feeling, what they're trying to even become.
When you market from that place or you come to them with that sort of a message, it just lands way differently.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:57)
Yeah, it lands straight to the soul properly, right? I mean, that's where you really feel it, is what we're trying to say with that.
So, this is especially important for founders and marketers when you're trying to scale. You're not just trying to solve functional problems. You're speaking to a need, you know, belonging, control, peace, self-worth, freedom. So, you're speaking to a need in this process, and that's what you want to focus on.

**Mike Liwski** (3:23)
So, the natural question that comes up is how to find, right? How do I find that human truth? And so, quite simple, you know, right? Number one, you do want to demonstrate empathy or come from a place of empathy. And so, to talk to your customers, you want to do that by going beyond just service level questions. Ask, you know, for example, what was going on in your life before you found us? Second thing, right? What were you hoping to change? And then the third one being, you know, what's the deeper why behind using our product or service?

**Tullio Siragusa** (3:59)
And I really love the why. In fact, I'm thinking your challenge to go five whys deep. So that's the five whys technique. Five whys, not five whys. Five whys techniques. So it's like you take a feature and you ask, why does that matter? And you go five times deep in that question. And it gets sometimes a little annoying to ask that fifth why.
But once you get there, you really uncover the truth. And you'll often go from, we save them time, to they're trying to reclaim time for their family, to they feel overwhelmed and want relief. And you know, you get to that human truth. And you only get to it when you go five whys deep.

**Stephen Sakach** (4:47)
Yeah, I love the five whys process. That's super helpful. It may be a little annoying, like you said, but you do get to that deeper truth at some point. One of the advantages we also have these days is you can also go on social media and listen to what your audience is saying about you and look in the reviews and the testimonials. What are people feeling when they talk about your brand? That's where sometimes that emotional gold lives that you can really connect with. So let's make this a little more concrete. Take an example here of Headspace. So this is Meditation and Mindfulness app. And on the surface, they're offering short guided meditations. That's the feature. And the benefit, better focus, lower stress, better sleep. But the human truth behind Headspace isn't you want to meditate. It's more you're craving peace in a world that won't stop spinning. And you want to feel like you have a sense of agency in your mental and emotional life, even if it's just for 10 minutes a day.