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.

http://marketing-strategy-management.com/2010/04/coupling-marketing-with-psychology/

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?   

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/13-tips-your-mental-physical-health-entrepreneur-alexa-ahrem

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.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/513199320011652986/

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rni41c9iq54