Is everything that’s taught in marketing school wrong? What should marketers know about new brain research? What makes us tick? Come along on this 10-week blog journey and find out—if you dare!
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (adapted from`Motivation & Personality' ©1970) Source: Wikipedia Commons, ©2010, used with permission
Understand motivation to make marketing meaningful
Authors of two new books propose theories that attempt to “get inside our heads” but from slightly different angles:
Bob Gilbreath, The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning, and
David Rock, Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long
The first book advocates using a new approach to “push consumers’ buttons”: Marketing with Meaning. As a nurture marketer, I immediately loved Gilbreath’s description of this concept:
This groundbreaking methodology engages customers and wins their business by adding value to their lives.
Although not billed as a marketing book, Your Brain at Work details the latest in neuroscience and holds significant content for marketers.
Back to basics
Gilbreath lays the framework for Marketing with Meaning on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. If you’ve taken a 101 marketing, psychology or sociology course, chances are you recognize the chart shown above. Maslow explained human motivation in terms of satisfying needs and desires along a progression of steps with new needs emerging as those at the level below are met.
Maslow uses two groups to differentiate needs (and motivation) in his hierarchy:
- Deficiency needs (deficiency motivation) encompass the four categories at the bottom of the pyramid; these needs “kick in” when there is not enough of something—like the thermostat on a furnace—until a balance is achieved.
- Being needs (growth motivation) describe desires with no built-in limits or balance point; Maslow defines self-actualization as “the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.”
Although the goals of self-actualized people vary with the individual, according to Maslow, they share common traits listed at the top of the pyramid above.
Abraham Harold Maslow put on a SCARF!
In digging into some of his old writings, I learned that Maslow started his psychology research at the University of Wisconsin. Maslow’s mother might have issued the command above to her son during the cold Madison winters…or if she had read Rock’s new book, where he uses the acronym SCARF to describe ideal states that are desired by the human brain:
Status…to feel important
Certainty…to accurately forecast what’s coming next
Autonomy…to have choices and a say in things
Relatedness…to safely connect with others
Fairness…to be treated with evenhandedness
Do any of these remind you of underlying motivations for conversations you might hear in the workplace or on social media forums?
Dive deeper into the brain
We’re not scratching the surface here…Let’s get to the core of consumer decisions:
In this 10-part, weekly series, I reconcile research from the past with the present and examine one aspect of what makes us tick: theories of behavioral motivation. To set the stage for our comparison, in part 2, I’ll examine some lesser-known facts about Maslow’s research. In parts 3 through 7, I’ll compare recent neuroscience findings and Rock’s SCARF model to Maslow’s hierarchy—one post for each letter of the acronym; plus, I’ll discuss implications for marketers and include examples. Part 8 will take a last look at marketing implications stemming from Maslow’s theories; plus I’ll address the role of individuality and Gilbreath’s use of a pyramid to diagram his Marketing with Meaning model. Finally, in parts 9 and 10, I’ll provide a rundown of my thoughts on each book.
What theories of motivation are behind your marketing?
You might also like…
NEW brain research part 2: Setting the record straight on Maslow’s theories
NEW brain research part 3: Become a marketing status symbol
NEW brain research part 4: Nothing’s certain but death, taxes and marketing
NEW brain research part 5: Autonomy and irrational decision-making in marketing
NEW brain research part 6: Can you relate to marketing?
NEW brain research part 7: Life’s not fair for marketers
NEW brain research part 8: The marketing implications of Maslow’s hidden levels
NEW brain research part 9: Book review: Bob Gilbreath’s Marketing with Meaning
NEW brain research part 10: Book review: David Rock’s Your Brain at Work
Nurture marketing: a strategically superior alternative to drip marketing
The 10 golden rules of marketing white papers
Don’t want to miss part 2 of this series? Register on the End Result Marketing Website for free presentation downloads and email updates, sign up for RSS feeds or email updates of new blog posts or follow us on Twitter. We understand what makes people tick.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent perspective on the issue of influencing.
I am seeing and capturing/appending more and more unique metrics in use as marketers grow in sensitivity to the very personal feelings that are communicated with the flick of a finger. This is important stuff. Sign me up.
Jim
Thanks, Jim:
Coming from someone who has changed the face of marketing, your comments mean a lot to me. I am honored to have you follow this blog series.
I hope to bring a new perspective and generate some thought and good discussion.
Doug
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