The Science Behind Psychological Marketing Tactics
October 9th, 2008Abraham Maslow presented a theory that ordinates wants and desires in a comprehensive, consecutive, arrangement. According to Maslow, a person’s desires develop from the lower order desires, such as feeling safe, to the higher order desires, such as a sense of belonging and feeling loved. After these desires are developed and fulfilled, a person begins to desire esteem and self-actualization. The higher order wants only begin to develop after the lower order wants, like the physiological needs for food and shelter, are satisfied.
When we understand that markets, as a whole, with common human emotional tendencies, act like individuals whom that market represents, we can examine markets and trends in the same way we would examine an individual. The most appealing aspect of Maslow’s theory of needs is that it can be applied by proxy to an entire market.
It’s not that complicated to trace how these requirements tend to play themselves out in a small number of technologies with obstacles such as the primary advances in communications. These requirements convey themselves in aggregate across all persons within the market. When there is an assortment of an official body that expresses the will of the people, the requirements can be assessed and reviewed on a most-needed basis. In an elected government, an individual’s wants and desires can be pinpointed openly, or by proxy in a democracy by electing somebody who almost reflects their views.
Maslow’s hierarchy states that the need for survival is the most fundamental need for all humans. As a result, branches of society which are entrusted with the authority to ensure this survival through physical means are allotted the lion’s share of tax money. This applies to such branches of society as the military and fire defenses where the activities engaged in by members of that group ensure the continuation of basic survival.
If you go further into the Hierarchy of needs, you will notice that after the biological needs are met the next need is safety. This is when an individual’s fight or flight will emerge. If you’re looking at it from a marketing prospective, during the cold weather a commercial for jackets is the most appropriate. Timing is everything in the marketing aspect of this level. The next level describes relationships as brand recognition.
A person is more likely to purchase a jacket from a company that they’ve had superior experiences from and as long as you’re doing an ad for a reputed company then that part of the job is completed for you. If not, this is where the marketing player comes into play. The job of a good marketing group is to promote sales to new clientele and make new sales from existing clients. Starting off in a fresh company, this is where the artist desires to communicate the marketing team’s ideas visually in order to please this third need.
Good, efficient visuals build a sense of belonging and communication with the buyer. Belonging moves beyond our basic needs to live and beyond our need for safety. Belonging moves to the area where we choose what we love based on our feelings and our previous associations with a product or service and this is what a company’s marketing machine is trying to link to.
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