Deceptive Advertisments, Why Maslow Was Wrong and How to Motivate People

Posted on December 2, 2007
Filed Under Books, Business & Entrepreneurship, Finance & Economics, Psychology |

Typically, when a marketer appeals to a person’s self interest, the advertisements that result are deceptive and schmucky.

The ads end up promising enormous benefits for minimal costs:

• “You Can Laugh at Money Worries if You Follow This Simple Plan”
• “Give Me Five Days and I’ll Give You a Magnetic Personality…Let me Prove It -Free”
• “The Secret of How to be Taller”
• “How You Can Improve Your Memory in One Evening”
• “Become Rich Famous and Good-looking by Age 30″

According to the authors of the book Made to Stick there are ways to appeal to self-interest and not sound deceptive. Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

• Transcendence: help others realize their potential
• Self-actualization: realize our own potential, self-fulfillment, peak experiences
• Aesthetic: symmetry, order, beauty, balance
• Learning: know, understand, mentally connect
• Esteem: achieve, be competent, gain approval, independence, status
• Belonging: love, family, friends, affection
• Security: protection, safety, stability
• Physical: hunger, thirst, bodily comfort

Maslow’s pyramid was incredibly insightful in that it described the needs people strived to meet. However, Maslow was wrong in thinking that a person started at the bottom of the pyramid and worked his way up. Subsequent research has shown that people actually pursue all of these needs simultaneously. And this is HUGE for marketers. There are actually different categories of self-interest that appeal to humans, and they can all serve to motivate certain behaviors. Typically, when we talk about “self-interest” we are talking about the Physical, Security and Esteem layers. Occasionally, marketers will invoke the Belonging layer if the message is touchy-feely, but not many marketers or managers will venture beyond these categories.

If this idea that people pursue all of the layers of Maslow’s Needs simultaneously is true, then there is tremendous potential in invoking, and fulfilling, these other needs. And certainly the narrowly defined idea of self-interest as wealth and security isn’t the whole story. If it were, then people wouldn’t serve in the armed forces. It is fascinating how you can move beyond this traditional idea of self-interest in order to motivate people.

Let’s look at a related concept to help shed some light on the whole story of self-interest:

“A related idea comes from James March, a professor at Stanford University, who proposes that we use two basic models to make decisions. The first model involves calculating consequences. We weigh our alternatives, assessing the value of each one, and we choose the alternative that yields us the most value. This model is the standard view of decision making in economics classes: People are self-interested and rational. The rational agent asks: “Which sofa will provide me with the greatest comfort and the best aesthetics for the price?” Which political candidate will best serve my economic and social interests? The second model is quite different. It assumes that people make decisions based on identity. They ask themselves three questions: Who am I? What kind of situation is this? And what do people like me do in this kind of situation?

Notice that in the second model people aren’t analyzing the consequences or outcomes for themselves. There are no calculations, only norms and principles. Which sofa would someone like me - a Southeastern accountant - be more likely to buy? Which political candidate should a Hollywood Buddhist get behind? It’s almost as if people consulted an ideal self-image: What would someone like me do?”

Now consider this example of firefighters and popcorn poppers:

“Even John Caples, the mail-order copywriter [who is famous for writing deceptive ads similar to the ones above], admits that there are powerful motivations outside the narrow self-interest. He tells a story about a marketer who was promoting a new educational film on fire safety that was intended to help firemen. This marketer had been taught that there are three basic consumer appeals: sex, greed, and fear.

The marketer’s instinct was that greed would work best in this situation. He came up with a couple of ideas for free giveaways that would persuade firemen to check out the film. He began calling local units to figure out which giveaway would have the most appeal. When he called, he would describe the new film and ask, ‘Would you like to see the film for possible purchase for your educational programs?’ The universal answer was an enthusiastic ‘Yes!’

The second question tested two versions of his greed appeal: ‘Would your firefighters prefer a large electric popcorn popper or and excellent set of chef’s carving knives as a thank-you for reviewing the film?’

The first two calls yielded definitive answers to this question: ‘Do you think we’d use a fire safety program because of some #*$%! Popcorn Popper?!’”

The firemen are clearly making a decision not based on the rational self-maximizing economic model, but a much different model based on identity. Firemen don’t need to be motivated with trivial gifts to save lives. That is schmucky. After all, they are firemen, and that is what firemen do -save lives. It is still important to appeal to their self-interest, just not their self-interest as it is narrowly defined. They are much more concerned (and thus motivated) with having their other needs met (Esteem, Learning, Self-actualization, Transcendence).

So, what do we take away from this? The traditional perspectives of self-interest are important, but it makes for a limited palette. As the authors of Made to Stick so adequately say:

“It is like always painting with one color. It’s stifling for us and uninspiring for others.”

This concept could prove very interesting if applied to other fields of research too. It could shed a lot of light on the mystery of rationality that behavioral economics is trying to solve, by helping to explain why people don’t always act in a rational self-maximizing manner. It isn’t because they aren’t rational, but rather because we have too narrow a definition of rationality.

At any rate, I think this idea hold a tremendous amount of power.

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