What feels obvious to you may be completely invisible to your customer.

A while back, I wrote about Lay’s discovering something surprising.

A large portion of people didn’t know Lay’s chips were made from real, fresh potatoes, where competitor Pringles used nothing but potato flakes.

So Lay’s put a potato image on the bag and spelled it out.

It worked.

And now Tostitos is doing the same thing, ’cept with corn.

The old bags led with claims like “no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives.”

Technically correct for sure. But strategically as limp as an over-soaked nacho.

The research showed people saw Tostitos as a ubiquitous party snack.

Not as something crafted. Not as something rooted in tradition.

So they changed what they emphasized.

“Masa made in the traditional way,” and “We start with whole corn kernels.”

Corn is now pictured, for those who need help visualizing it. Impossible for even me to miss.

Photo: Pepsico

Most product teams assume customers understand the basics. Stuff like:

WHAT it’s made of.
HOW it’s made.
WHY that matters.

Most folks just don’t.

Years ago, I remember my young daughter gazing at a passing hen at an historic theme park and then up at me, shocked by a realization: “Is THAT the chicken we EAT?”

We’ve gone far, far away from our food sources. I was free-ranging on a farm for long swaths of my childhood, something my kids have never even experienced.

And when that sort of gap exists, customers fill it with whatever is easiest to assume.

Usually something generic, and often totally wrong. They DON’T know how you make your thing.

The result is a product that feels disconnected and devoid of meaning, even if it is anything but.

This is where positioning often collapses: because the starting point is ahead of itself.

If customers don’t know the (supposedly) obvious, they can’t even begin to appreciate nuance.

So the job isn’t to say more, but to clearly say the right first thing.

What’s the simplest truth about your product that your customer might not know?

Want to stop guessing what your customers actually care about? That’s what we do as product marketing agency at Graphos Product, uncovering real buyer insights through structured interviews that drive better positioning and faster adoption.