Selling Mental Stability
By: Caleb Lothian
The
brain is a powerful thing. It is the center of understanding, thought, decision
but also the hub of depression, fear, nervousness, and loneliness. Marketing
can have a positive and negative affect on one’s psychological stability. Marketing
managers play with both your physical and psychological needs. They make you
believe, psychologically, that you need something to either suit a physical
need or desire. To attack the mind of consumers is the main focus when
marketing.
Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs is the perfect break down of psychological marketing. Our
culture is driven by these five levels.
If
you truly think about it, marketing, is a combination of both art and science.
It’s an art and gift to be able to manipulate the human brain into thinking
they need something when in reality they just want it. Marketing will surely
never die, it is the main source of communication between the producers and
consumers; but, it also is a main source that yields depression and a lack of
psychological stability within consumers.
Guy
Winch, a psychologist, performed an amazing Ted Talk called “How to practice
emotional hygiene.” While watching and listening to what he had to say, I couldn’t
help but make connections to what we have learned thus far in Marketing class. He
started off by explaining that we as individuals show massive amounts of
favoritism. The worst of all being physical over psychological health and well-being.
He is not saying that we should
completely ignore our physical status or health, rather, finding a happy medium
between your mind and your body. Mr. Winch used a great example to explain this
further. He went over to one of his friends’ houses for dinner. After dinner he
witnessed his friend’s five year old son slip and cut his knee while falling
off of a stool he was standing on when brushing his teeth. The little boy
immediately stood back on the stool and reached for a band-aide. The point of
this story was that we all know how to care for a physical injury, or how to
perform dental hygiene. It becomes common knowledge at a young age. Guy Winch
then asks, “But, what do we know about maintaining our psychological health........Nothing.”
We are taught how and encouraged to care for our physical needs, so why not the
same for our psychological needs?
This
is similar to what we see on the television, in magazines, billboards, etc. We
are always and constantly encouraged to provide for our physical well-being and
desires, it is learned at a young age. An example would be when companies use
pro athletes and/or models to make their product more appealing. This may be
more appealing to the consumers but it can also simultaneously have a reverse
reaction and negatively affect your mental state. For example, after purchasing
a product that you see a model using/wearing, you realize that it doesn’t look
as good on you; therefore, causing negative thoughts such as “I can never be
that good, I can never look that good, etc.” Failure then sets in, which leads
to psychological pain. These thoughts damage your psychological security and
soon add up due to our lack of treating and caring for our psychological
health. The amazing part is that we continue to strive and be like someone that
we will never be because of the power of marketing.
The
share a coke campaign is an example of marketing schemes that could go in
either direction. It can be argued that this campaign is targeting individuals
love and belonging needs as listed in Maslow’s chart. This image and the
commercials associated with this campaign promote friendship. You not only have
a friend in coke but you have a product that can create a friendship or
connection with other consumers. On the other hand any commercial dealing with
sharing, love, and friendship can further damage the mental state of an
individual who was already currently struggling with depression and loneliness.
This sense of loneliness creates a sensitive psychological wound. Guy Winch
says it best, “it makes us believe that others around us care far less than
they actually do. It makes us timid, why set yourself up for rejection?” Everyone’s
needs, either physical or psychological, can’t be met and marketing will
forever target our cognitive and subjective needs and desires. These are
unavoidable because the point of marketing is to stimulate thought and motivate
human behavior.
To
see Guy Winch’s Ted Talk click on the link below:
