Anti-aging creams sell you placebo

So, I went to a cosmetic store this week and noticed something interesting.

Over at the women's section I saw a few anti-aging creams. Some were priced around 50€. Others at 500€! How is this possible? Is there even any difference between them?

Well, yes. First, yes, it seems these creams actually work. They have some fancy ingredients like retinoids, peptides, and antioxidants do something. Cool.

However, what justifies the 10x difference in price? My answer: placebos.

These creams can't turn a 50 year old face into a 30 year old one. Their claim is that they only slow down aging - make you look fresher, sharper, younger. So will a 10x more expensive cream slow down aging 10x more? Yes, thanks to the placebo effect.

The increased price will make you believe the increased potency of the chemical formulas inside the cream - even if they are exactly the same. By using it, you’ll feel younger, fresher.

It’s a perfect mix, really. The ads they show always promote the breakthrough scientific formulas they developed to make you look younger. You don’t really understand them, but they seem trustworthy, so you believe them.

But science should be expensive, right? If they sold it for 5€ it would be hard to believe they invested all their scientific might into it… So a 50€ price tag makes it believable.

And if they price it a 500€ you’ll believe Albert Einstein himself developed the formula!

The stronger the feeling you want to convey, the higher the price must be.

Expensive clothes feel sharper. Business class seats feel comfier. Apple products feel faster. Perception, perception, perception.

So an exercise for you: how does your product make your client feel? More productive? More pretty? More confident? No matter the answer, pick one way to make them feel that way.