Let's start this module with a simple but very important statement. And that is the products can satisfy a range of consumer needs. As we saw in the brief discussion about vegetarians in the last section, people do the same behavior for many different reasons. So, in marketing, it's extremely important to get beneath the surface and figure out again, not just what people do, but why they do it. We also know that motives have direction, as well as strength. That means that some motives are focused on attaining a goal, and others are focused on avoiding a goal.
We like some things we don't like others, we want some things we don't want others, and we might work equally hard to either attain a goal or avoid it. How hard Are we going to work to attain that goal? Well, that depends on the strength of the motivation. So essentially, the more relevant or important the need, the harder we're going to work to attain it. That just makes sense. That's why it's important to look not only at what we want to achieve, but how badly we want to achieve it.
So motives are goal oriented. They drive us to satisfy a specific need. We don't behave at random for the most part, but rather our behaviors are intended to get us over the finish line. But what is that finish line? That's that's the question that marketers have to answer. What is that ultimate goal that your customers are trying to achieve?
Once you identify that goal, it becomes much easier to help your customers reach that goal and they're going to reward you for that help with a lot of loyalty So to understand that the same product can satisfy different needs, let's take a look at a vintage commercial from 1962 for a brand of deodorant that no longer exists. I bought the fresh stick just as you told me. You're absolutely right. It's nice and quick and it goes on dry. It did make me feel cool and sweet. Just as you said.
I did everything you said but my boss still hasn't asked me to lunch on like some deodorants fresh doesn't guarantee you'll get ahead in business. All fresh does is keep you fresh, when you think of it that quite a lot. Now that commercial as you might expect from 1962 is not exactly the most enlightened statement about male female relationships. But the reason I wanted you to look at it is that it does remind us that The same basic product like a deodorant can satisfy different needs. Some of those needs are very functional, like keeping you dry, and others are much more intangible and complicated, such as getting promoted or getting a date with your boss. It's useful for us to divide needs into two broad categories.
A utilitarian need involves the tangible attributes of products, such as miles per gallon in a car, the amount of fat calories and protein and a cheeseburger or the durability of a pair of blue jeans. In contrast hedonic needs are subjective and experiential. Here we might look to a product to meet our need for excitement for self confidence, or even for fantasy, perhaps to escape the mundane or routine aspects of life. So it's no coincidence that there's even a chain of adult resorts in the Caribbean, known as hedonism. And clearly here the motivations are all about escaping the mundane and perhaps even engaging in fantasy