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Extra Reading Issue 3
Extra Reading Issue 3
As marketers, we can all agree that understanding our consumers’ motivations – their
internal drive to satisfy their physiological and psychological needs and wants – is
critical. That’s because motivations are the primary drivers of purchase decisions.
Marketers need to understand the decision-making and purchasing process in order to
champion relevant products, feature innovation and create effective marketing
communications.
Just how do consumers move from identifying motivations to purchasing products and
services that fulfill their needs and wants? The process has four distinct stages:
1. It begins with recognizing a latent or overt need. Let’s use hunger, for example.
2. Once the need for hunger is recognized, it causes an inherent tension, or discomfort,
that we are motivated to fulfill. If you’re hungry, it may be because it’s lunch time, so
you start evaluating your lunch options.
3. Your motivation translates into desire (or want), likely for a specific goal focused
on a product category (e.g., sandwiches, salad, pizza, etc.) or a specific product (e.g., a
Pret A Manger sandwich or a Sweetgreen salad).
4. Your goal is achieved through behavior that satisfies your original need and thus
reduces the tension you feel. In this example, perhaps you’ve fulfilled your need by
ordering and eating a Sweetgreen salad.
• The timely launch of those marketing communications so that consumers see those
messages as they are discovering the needs, wants and tensions to be fulfilled or
alleviated.
But marketers often struggle with how to identify and understand consumer
motivations due to the complexity of non-physiological motivations (e.g., motivations
outside of basic needs for food, clothing and shelter). Here’s how marketers can go
about understanding consumer motivations and leveraging these insights to power
effective campaigns.
Once you’ve conducted your research, invest the time and energy to read and reread
the verbatim responses of each respondent. In doing so, look for overt or implicit
patterns. Remember, search for what went unsaid in these interviews as diligently as
you focus on what was said.
• How do external influences like culture and reference groups impact consumers as
they consider your product or service?
Don’t forget to consider the results of the above questions in the context of the
business environment to ensure that the consumer motives you uncover will lead to
marketing insights.
Your next instinct may be to verify the findings of your qualitative research with a
quantitative survey or to measure them against the general population. However,
motivational studies often cannot be proven through survey research – especially if
they relate to unconscious motives. Instead, focus on evaluating your resulting
hypotheses by testing ad concepts that address different motives uncovered by your
research.
A. Use the phrases in the box from the article to complete the following sentences.
3. You can use the …………….. to place products from different categories to
give a better idea of your brand.
4. ………….. is an internal state that drives people to identify and buy products
or services that fulfill conscious and unconscious needs or desires.
B. Read the article and chose the correct option to complete the following
sentences.
a. get products and services that match your customers' needs and wants
c. recognize a need, evaluate options, translate into desire, satisfy original need
and want.
d. recognize a need, evaluate product features, translate into purchasing behavior,
satisfy original need and want.
4. Marketers often struggle with how to identify and understand consumer motivations
due to ……………….
2. What data collection methods did Ernest Dichter use to understand customer
motivations.
3. What data collection methods should we use to conduct customer motivation
research?
4. What is the purpose of investing the time and energy to read and reread the
verbatim responses of each respondents?