All things being equal

Some of the products in the market offer features which sounds futuristic or one which are not needed immediately by the consumers or those which are helpful only for about 10% to 20% of the consumer base. Let me give few examples, selling NFC (near field communication) mobile phones in markets like India which doesn't have an ecosystem yet for NFC, Samsung trying to market its tablets on charts App, which probably will not be used by majority, Fevicol marketing its products showing furnitures thrown in water, but the fact is majority of us would keep furnitures away from water.

Then the question is why are these companies providing these features or promoting their  products around these features? Because in the age of high competition, you need to answer this question in the consumer's mind, 'all things being equal whom should I go with', in that scenario the features like Charts, NFC or Water proof furnitures will pop-up in their mind. Even though these features are not mandatory for them, they gave a one-up score to a company compared to others. And it also managed to capture their mind and their interest, hence consumers buy them.

So when the consumer is asking the 'all things being equal' question, is your product popping up in their mind?