Written - Marketing 8 hidden needs notes

• Selling emotional security. Products representing assurance and security, warmth, safety. (page 86)
• Selling reassurance of worth. Dr Smiths book of motivational research makes the point that luggage makers can increase sales if they remind the public that they are selling a form of reassurance. Nice new luggage, he advises, gives a man a feeling of being important and gives him more bearing when he goes out into the world. (page 88)
• Selling ego-gratification. One of the most forthright instances of selling ego-gratification is that done by the vanity press that brings out books completely subsidized by the author. During the early fifties 10 percent of all books published in America were of this variety. (Page 89)
• Selling creative outlets. Housewives consistently report that one of the most pleasurable tasks of the home is making a cake. Psychologists were put to work exploring this phenomenon for merchandising clues. James Vicary made a study of cake symbolism and came up with the conclusion that when a woman bakes a cake for her family she is symbolically presenting the family with a new baby, an idea she likes very much........ Marketers are finding many areas where they can improve sales by urging the prospective customer to add his creative touch. (Page 90 & 91)
• Selling love objects. (page 91)
• Selling sense of power. The fascination Americans show for any product that seems to offer them a personal extension of power has offered a rich field for exploitation by merchandisers. (Page 92) One complication of the power appeal of a powerful new car, the Institute for Motivational Research found, was that the man buying it often feels guilty about indulging himself with power that might be regarded as needless. (Page 92) Power boats - One man, an executive, who was invited to chat at length on the subject said that with a good power boat 'you can show that you are all man and let her rip - without having the fear that you are bound to have on the road.'
• Selling a sense of roots. Psychiatrists and other probers listening to people talk at random about wine found that many related it to old family entered or festive occasions. some talked in an almost homesick way about wine and the good old days that went with it. (page 93)
• Selling immortality. Selling life insurance, how to put more impact into their messages advertising insurance. Mr Weiss asked how advertising could be more effective in reassuring both these types on the prospect for the kind of immortality they yearned for. In short, how could the appeals promise both protection and control without alienating one or the other of the potential buyers? (page 94)