HELP YOUR CUSTOMERS FULFILL THEIR FANTASIES

Advertising agencies have created consuming fantasies for years. They carefully select models, images, settings, scenes, and story lines to evoke an image, a feeling, and a fantasy of how one's life would be transformed through owning a product. I want to live in the world of laundry detergent commercials. In those ads, the day is always sunny and the trees are always green. There is beautiful music playing in the background and the curtains are gently swaying in a mild breeze. It is never too cold or hot in laundry-detergent world and it always smells fresh and clean. Perhaps the craft of advertising taught consumers how to create consuming fantasies, but however it started, consumers invent often-elaborate fantasies that they desire to act out through the things they buy and own.

When consumers talk about why they buy, they often explain it in terms of fantasy fulfillment. Through their consuming fantasies, they imagine how they will enhance their lives by the purchase of some thing, and how it will taste, feel, smell, look, and sound. They are visceral in their fantasies and use them to build excitement and anticipation leading toward a purchase. Marketers must tap into those consuming fantasies, understand them, and play back the fantasy imagery in marketing communications. It is part of romancing customers, relating on an emotional level, and making them feel special and loved.