From the course: Advanced Consumer Behavior

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Motivation: Why do people want stuff?

Motivation: Why do people want stuff?

From the course: Advanced Consumer Behavior

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Motivation: Why do people want stuff?

- We know that marketing is all about satisfying needs. But in order to do that, we have to understand why people buy what they do. To understand how motivation works, we need to distinguish between a need and a want. A need is a basic goal such as keeping yourself nourished or protected from the elements. In contrast, a want is a specific pathway to achieving this objective that depends a lot on our unique personalities, cultural upbringing, and our observations about how others we know satisfy the same need. Two people may have a need for shelter, but one person's cool downtown loft is another's suburban McMansion. In a lot of situations we don't have strong preferences for the brands we buy, so long as they do what they're intended to do. But in other cases, cult products such as Apple or Harley Davidson, Chick-fil-A, and the Boston Red Sox command fierce consumer loyalty, devotion, and maybe even worship by consumers. Which side of the fence are your customers on? The answer makes…

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