Drive and pull

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

Related Articles

Honda’s new zero-emission, hydrogen fuel cell car ...

The fundamental principle underlying the marketing discipline is satisfying consumer needs. Therefore, the key task of any marketer is to find out what consumers want or why do they prefer a competitor’s product and then deliver something better. However, consumers do not necessarily know why they prefer one brand over another. When asked, they give us sound, tangible reasons. But these are not necessarily the real motivating reasons, because brands satisfy strong emotive needs in addition to the functional ones. It is difficult enough to identify and understand these emotive needs, let alone how we might position a brand to tap them.

The emotive needs are a result of the consumer’s psychological makeup. Consumers satisfy these needs through a variety of means. Brands provide a symbolic dimension, which enables the consumers to establish a relationship with products. The brand, therefore, provides a symbolic overlay to the product, enabling the establishment of a strong emotive relationship.

Let’s illustrate what we mean by emotive needs. Imagine someone who is very powerful and likes to project his status in everything that he does. Therefore, he picks elements, which can measure up to the standards that he lives by and which make him feel the same way. If something does not fit in with this scheme of things, a great deal of anxiety results, as this person has a strong emotive need to project his status and authority.

Products and brands may assist this process by providing the appropriate gratification. For some people, cars may serve such a purpose. Certain car brands can be used to help in projecting power and status. The product has both the physical and emotional effect of being a symbol; providing the user in this case with added status and the feeling of being powerful.

Apart from being individuals, human beings are social animals as well. They have a strong need to fit in, to belong and to identify with a particular group. Patriotism, parochialism, family, club, and peer group identification are all expressions of this social identity need. Social roles are also expressions of identity need, the businessperson, the homemaker, the student to name but a few.

Here also, brands serve an important function. Brands can become icons for a group, helping to define group belonging and role identification. One of the most overt ways brands are used is to display membership to a particular social stratum in its brand communication.