Motivational research

NEEDS AND MOTIVES

Consumer motivation

“Marketing Creates
Needs”

Do you agree, or
disagree……..??
Needs and wants

• Marketing doesn’t create needs, but exploits them by reminding us of

salient needs at the right time
• Marketing encourages us to want brand X by associating its
acquisition with the satisfaction of a need
• Even physiological hunger might lead to a want for a specific product
(chocolate/coconut bar advertised in an island paradise context):
imagery suggests hunger satisfaction but also a kind of inner utopia!

vs.
Needs, wants and desires

 Belk et al. (2003): Desires are social in nature and

the driving force behind much of our contemporary
consumption

DESIRE VERSUS NEED AND WANT

Need Want Desire
Initial state Fixed Open Open
Relation to object Open Open or fixed Fixed
Cartesian relation Body Mind Body and mind
Mode of expression Necessity Wish Passion

Belk, R. W., Ger, G., & Askegaard, S. (2003). The fire of desire: A multisited inquiry into consumer passion. Journal of consumer research, 30(3), 326-351.
From luxuries to necessities?
 Scaruffi (2011): The spiral of new needs/ necessities is determining
the environmental and financial crisis
(http://www.slideshare.net/scaruffi/how-to-kill-yourself-your-
country-and-your-planet-in-a-few-easy-stepsand-feel-good-about-it )
 What is luxury for the previous generations becomes necessity
for the young ones

Hp: a two-step flow?:

1. Marketing  Desires
2. Desires Needs
From luxuries to necessities?
 Braun, Zolfagharian, & Belk (2016): how certain
products move to being perceived as necessities over
time

- Existential
- Funcional
- Symbolic

- Contamination
- Redemption

- Punitive
- Celebratory

Braun, J., Zolfagharian, M., & Belk, R. W. (2016). How Does a Product Gain the Status of a Necessity? An Analysis of Necessitation Narratives. Psychology & Marketing, 33(3),
209-222.
 A note on needs and utility (economic utilitarianism)
Economic utility is a measure of needs?
(Or the reverse, as in “the utility of a bridge is measured by how many times people cross it”?)

No way, since the definition of needs are always ineffable, even for “something so relatively
uncomplicated as a bridge. Yes, it can make it easier for people to get to the other side of a river,
but why do they want to do that? To visit an aging relative? To go bowling?”
(ie, is the same need? Has the same value?)

“Even if it’s just to shop for groceries. One does not buy groceries simply to maintain one’s
physical health: one also expresses one’s personal taste, maintains an ethnic or family tradition,
acquires the means to throw drinking parties with one’s friends or to celebrate religious holidays.
We can’t really discuss any of these things in terms of a language of “needs.”
For much of human history—and this is still true in much of the world today—when poor people
end up in crippling debt to local moneylenders, it’s because they felt they had to borrow money to
throw proper funerals for their parents or weddings for their children. Did they “need” to do this?
Clearly, they felt strongly that they did.
And since there’s no scientific definition of what a “human need” actually is, beyond the body’s
minimal caloric and nutritional requirements, and a few other physical factors, such questions
must always be subjective. To a large degree, needs are just other people’s expectations. If you
don’t throw a proper wedding for your daughter, it would be a family disgrace.”

Graeber, D. (2018). Bullshit Jobs–A Theory, UK, Allen Lane.

Different Kinds of Motivation
Theories on motivation?
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow theory is obsolete and unscientific.

Nevertheless, you can use

it in a disruptive way…
This ad demonstrates a
basic (physiological?)
product meeting
psychological and
social needs
• Examples of how marketers have targeted Maslow’s ‘safety’
needs for high level (self-actualization / esteem) products
Hidden motives: conscious, subconscious
and unconscious motivations
Ernest Dichter (1909-1991) suggested that sports cars
equated with a subconscious drive for a mistress

Some products can be symbols and tap unconscious motives

Unconscious consumers?
Evidence from
neuromarketing
 UNCONSCIOUS CONSUMERS?
1) AUTOMATIC WILLINGNESS TO BUY

• Imagine you are standing at a street with heavy traffic watching someone on the other
side of the road.
• Do you think your brain is implicitly registering your willingness to buy any of the
cars passing by outside your focus of attention?

• Tusche et al. 2010: economic choices can be prepared automatically, in the absence of
explicit deliberation and without attention to products

Tusche, A., Bode, S., & Haynes, J. D. (2010). Neural responses to unattended products predict later consumer choices. The Journal of Neuroscience, 30(23),
8024-8031.
 UNCONSCIOUS CONSUMERS? 1) AUTOMATIC WILLINGNESS TO BUY

• Participants in the first group (high attention) were instructed to closely attend to
the products and to rate their attractiveness.
• Participants in the second group (low attention) were distracted from products and
their attention was directed elsewhere.

Tusche, A., Bode, S., & Haynes, J. D. (2010). Neural responses to unattended products predict later consumer choices. The Journal of Neuroscience, 30(23),
8024-8031.
 UNCONSCIOUS CONSUMERS? 1) AUTOMATIC WILLINGNESS TO BUY

Results: activation patterns in the insula and the medial prefrontal cortex were found
• to reliably predict subsequent choices
• in both the high and the low attention group.
 this suggests that neural evaluation of products and associated choice-related processing does
not necessarily depend on attentional processing of available items

Tusche, A., Bode, S., & Haynes, J. D. (2010). Neural responses to unattended products predict later consumer choices. The Journal of Neuroscience, 30(23),
8024-8031.
 UNCONSCIOUS CONSUMERS?
2) OVULATION AND WOMEN’S PRODUCT CHOICES

•Recent research shows that women experience nonconscious

shifts across different phases of the monthly ovulatory cycle.
 For example, women at peak fertility (near ovulation) are
attracted to different kinds of men and show increased desire to
attend social gatherings

•Is consumer behavior influenced by hormonal factors?

•Durante et al. (2011): near ovulation, do women choose sexier
and revealing clothing and other fashion items rather than items
that are less revealing and sexy?

•Women chose a greater percentage of sexy clothing and

accessory items near ovulation (59.8%) compared to when they
were not ovulating (51.3% - p<,05)
 at peak fertility women nonconsciously choose products that
enhance appearance (e.g., choosing sexy rather than more
conservative clothing).

Ovulating (n=60) 60% 40%

Not ovulating (n=60) 51% 49%
Durante, K. M., Griskevicius, V., Hill, S. E., Perilloux, C., & Li, N. P. (2011). Ovulation, female competition, and product choice: Hormonal influences on
consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(6), 921-934.
 UNCONSCIOUS CONSUMERS? 2) OVULATION AND WOMEN’S PRODUCT CHOICES

• Why?
• Hp: Female competition is enhanced during ovulation?
• Before the shopping task, women were primed to think about (1) attractive women, (2)
unattractive women, (3) attractive men, or (4) unattractive men.

• This hormonally regulated effect appears to be driven by a desire to outdo attractive

rival women.

Durante, K. M., Griskevicius, V., Hill, S. E., Perilloux, C., & Li, N. P. (2011). Ovulation, female competition, and product choice: Hormonal influences on
consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(6), 921-934.
Motivational research: some
methodological hints
• Qualitative (vs. quantitative)
• Projective Techniques (Rather than ‘why did you buy
that?’, ‘What sort of person buys that?’,)
• Word Association - Volvo = safety, etc.
• Role Playing - Psychodrama (examples of consumers
role playing different brands of pain killer)

• Mason-Haire Study of Instant Coffee – Project your

feelings through the third party (the person who drew up
the shopping list)
 Good vs. Real Reasons
for Buying: Haire’s
Shopping List
Shopping List 1 Shopping List 2
1 ½ lb hamburger 1 ½ lb hamburger
2 loaves Wonderbread 2 loaves Wonderbread
Bunch of carrots Bunch of carrots
1lb Nestlé instant coffee 1lb Maxwell House drip-grind
coffee
2 cans Del Monte peaches 2 cans Del Monte peaches
5 lb potatoes 5 lb potatoes
What type of person would have drawn up each
shopping list?
Mary Baker cake mix didn’t
initially sell well and direct
questioning suggested taste as
the problem…
… but indirect questioning
revealed that to only have to
add water to the mix was seen
not only as too much of a
convenience but also did not
satisfy creativity sufficiently.
Omitting the dried egg
component seemed to do the
trick – sales rose - other ‘mixes’
followed suit
Cartoon Test
Dave says Accounting
is more interesting
than Marketing
 “Post-mortem”

Imagine that your jar of Nutella died yesterday and

you were asked to write a death notice for the
national newspaper….
 • An example of communication based on projective
tecniques: Ampliphon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0ocPB8wQng
 Means-End Chain
Laddering
END
• Values • Self esteem
• Better figure
• Consequences • Don’t get so fat
• Eat less
• Product • Strong taste
attributes • Flavoured crisps

MEANS