I remember when I was a kid and times were hard.  In order to save money, my mom used to supplement our food supply with the generic store brand stuff. I especially remember the "treats" that came in the black and white packaging.  The peanut butter, cookies, and the cheesy poofs were usually the worst, but a lot of the other stuff wasn't really that bad.  If I closed my eyes I could hardly tell the difference.  But despite that fact, when I went to my friends' house and saw Rice Crispies^TM and I had Rice Puff Cereal, I felt like I got a little jipped.

I guess the companies that make the generic food eventually caught on that this was a common sentiment and eventually they started replacing the labels with those that are strikingly similar to mainstream brands. If you wanted a cheaper version of Dr. Pepper^TM you got Nurse Practitioner Spice or something like that. But at least they were doing something to add to the customer's experience.

The truth is that a lot of time there is no difference in the product.  In fact sometimes the product can come out of the very same factory like when Toyota Corolla^TM and Geo Prizm^TM were the exact same car.  But a cold hard fact is that Toyota sold more Corollas^TM than Geo sold Prizms^TM because of that little symbol in the front. There was a story around that symbol and that is a large part of what the people are buying.

Everything and everyone we come in contact with has a story.  In simplest terms, that story is the brand. That plain black and white label told the story that "what's in this box isn't worth getting excited about."  That's why kids didn't care if you "couldn't tell the difference."

But when those some products were contained in more thought out packaging, they began to tell a different story.  That story was, "I'm trying real hard to give you the experience you expect from this product." And you know what? I could have sworn that just by doing that small gesture those same cheesy poofs began to taste better.

Can you see how this applies to recruiting?