Chapter 1: Why do People Buy Things They Don t Need?

OVERVIEW

Because they do need!

That is the simple answer to a profoundly challenging question. Consumers buy things to satisfy a concrete, distinctly felt need. Many consumer marketers go little further than this: uncover the need, target it in advertising, and, voila, products get sold. But in today's diverse, networked, information-crowded marketplace, it is hard to rise above the background noise of commerce with practical, needs-based advertising.

What do any of us really need? More fundamentally, how do you reach a mass-consumer market where my need is so different from your need and your need is so different from that of each of your neighbors? What about where the need cannot be defined in conscious, rationally based criteria, but is ephemeral, based on emotions and feelings? Any psychologist will tell you that each of our individual needs extends so much deeper than the simple physical subsistence level. In today's consumer-driven society, satisfying consumer needs has less to do with the practical meeting of physical needs and everything to do with gratifying desires based upon emotions. The act of consuming, rather than the item being consumed, satisfies the need. This is the subject of this book.