Chapter 4
Consumer Motivation
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Motivation is the driving force within individuals that
impels them to action.
Unfulfilled need = State of tension = Driving force
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Motivation as a psychological force:
Needs
1. Innate (physiological or biogenic)
Primary needs
2. Acquired needs
Learned in response to our culture or environment
Secondary needs or Psychological needs
Extrinsic & Intrinsic needs.
Motives or needs can have a positive or negative direction.
Individual may feel a driving force toward some object or
condition or a driving force away from some object or
condition.
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Goals : are the sought-after results of motivated behavior.
• Generic goals
• Product specific goal (specifically branded products and services that
consumers select for goal fulfillment).
Selection of goals
• Personal value, personal experience, physical capacity, prevailing cultural
norms and values, goal accessibility in the physical and social environment
• Individual’s own perception of him or herself (Self-image)
• Approach object & Avoidance object.
Interdependence of needs and goals
• Awareness is more in goal than in needs.
• Awareness in more in physiological need than psychological need
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Rational versus emotional motives
• Rationality: consumers select goals based on totally objective
criteria (best utility)
• Emotional motive: based on personal or subjective criteria
The dynamics of motivation
• Needs are never fully satisfied
• New needs emerge as old needs are satisfied
• Success and failure influence goals
• Levels of aspiration
• Expectation based on past experience
• Goals should be reasonably attainable
• Not over promise, performance and expectation
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Substitute goals: Continued deprivation from a primary goal may result in the
substitute goal assuming primary-goal status.
Frustration
The inability to attain a goal ( can be both personal and physical/social
environment).
Either manage to cope up, or seek substitute goal or adopt
Aggression
Defense mechanism: Rationalization
Regression
Withdrawal
Projection
Daydreaming
Identification
Repression
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Types & Systems of needs:
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Self
Actualization
Self-Esteem
Belongingness
Safety
Physiological
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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
− Perhaps the best known theory of motivation is Abraham Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs Theory.
− Maslow was a Psychologist who proposed that within every person is a
hierarchy of five needs:
1. Physiological needs: Food, Drink, Shelter and other physical
requirements
2. Safety needs: Security and protection from physical and emotional
harm as well as assurance that physical needs will continue to be met
3. Social needs: affection, belongingness, acceptance and friendship
4. Esteem needs: Internal esteem factors such as self respect,
autonomy and achievement an external esteem factors such as
status, recognition and attention
5. Self-actualization needs: growth, achieving one’s potential and self
fulfillment; the drive to become what one is capable of becoming
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• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
− Maslow argued that each level in the need hierarchy must be substantially
satisfied before the next is activated and that once a need is substantially satisfied,
it no longer motivates behavior.
− Individuals move up the needs hierarchy
− According to Maslow, if you want to motivate someone, you need to understand
what level the person is on in the hierarchy and focus on satisfying needs at or
above that level
− Maslow separated the five needs into two levels –
Lower order needs – physiological and safety needs
Higher order needs – social, esteem and self-actualization needs
− The difference was that higher order needs are satisfied internally while lower
order needs are predominantly satisfied externally
There are some overlaps between each level
The prime motivator
Marketing application (advertising appeal, product positioning or repositioning,
market segmentation)
Consumer goods designed to satisfy each level of need.
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A Trio of Needs
• Power (needs to control other person or object)
• Affiliation (desire for friendship, acceptance
belongings)
• Achievement (personal accomplishment)
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