Do Marketers Create False Needs?

Whether marketers, through marketing techniques and strategies, make consumers spend more than they need to, or they just tap into the already existing needs of the consumers?


To understand and answer the question mentioned above, first we must fully understand the concept of ‘needs’. What are needs? Are they just what we call our basic needs, or there are other needs too? How the fulfillment of needs affect our lives and vice versa? For this purpose, I will start with discussing the work of Abraham Maslow, who proposed a model based on the hierarchy of human needs. I will try to analyze the different levels of needs in Maslow’s model in the light of some real life scenarios.


<Picture of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs>


Maslow has described the needs to be much more than the basic needs only. He has divided the needs of humans into different levels.

Let’s analyze the Maslow’s hierarchy with the help of following examples:

Example 1:

A boy has three meals daily. Then suddenly because of some accident, he gets stuck at some place without food and water. He is trying to escape but couldn’t. He waits for someone to rescue him. Two days pass by in this situation. He is still alive but feeling very weak. Then on the third day he gets rescued and is given food. He recovers gradually from the trauma and poor health condition.

Deduction: This example relates to the Physiological and Safety needs in the Maslow’s hierarchy. Important points to note here are:

1. Food is a basic need. Still the boy survived for two days without it. This means that we cannot treat the basic needs to be related to survival, without considering the time dimension. So, if the absence of something kills a person in a month’s time, that thing should be treated as basic need for the person. If a person dies after 5 years because of the lack of something important to him, it should also be treated as a basic need which was not fulfilled.

2. Even though Safety needs are above Physiological needs in Maslow’s hierarchy, in this situation their priority increased as the boy could only fulfill his basic needs once he got rescued. So with respect to time and situation, the different levels of need interchange priorities.

Example 2:

A seven year old boy goes to his friend’s house. He sees that his friend has got the new Sony Play Station 3 gaming console and finds it awesome. When he comes back, he tells his parents about the new gaming console his friend has bought, and expects his parents to do something. But his parents are going through a financial crunch period and can’t afford to buy any gaming console for their son. So first they try to divert his attention to other things. When the kid keeps insisting, they scold him to put an end to the issue. So, the boy frequently goes to his friend’s house to play the game. After sometime, his friend argues with him over something and insults him for frequently visiting his house. The boy stops going to his friend’s house. But at the same time, he starts believing strongly that if he doesn’t have a PS3 or anything like it, he will get insulted. From that point in time, he will try his best to get stuff like PS3, by hook or may be by crook. And if he fails to do so, his mind will keep pinching him, resulting in depression and other issues.

Deduction: This example refers to the Physiological and Esteem needs in Maslow’s hierarchy. Important points to note here are:

1. Playing games is like sex for kids. It’s their basic need as they crave for games the same way adults crave for sex. So basic needs change on the basis of age and behavioral patterns.

2. The Esteem needs can cause depression and other mental issues, if they are not fulfilled. A person might survive without sex and with just one meal daily, but he might not withstand the degradation and insult his society throws at him, and commit suicide.

Example 3:

A guy has a female best friend. They are cousins and have known each other since childhood. As they reach adulthood, they realize that they cannot live without each other. The parents of the girl are rich while the parents of the boy are from the middle class. So when the boy discusses with his parents, they try to convince him that the marriage won’t be a successful one as the girl won’t be able to adjust in their circle. The boy thinks rationally and decides to avoid the girl, for the purpose of making ‘her’ future life better. The girl is so attached to the guy that she feels his ignorance and argues with him. On getting a cold response, she goes into depression and becomes ill. The guy, seeing this, softens up and tries to talk things out. But the girl is determined and convinces the guy that she will be able to live happily with him. Finally the boy gives up to his feelings and decides to take the risk. They get married and lead a successful life.

Deduction: This example relates to the Love/Belonging need of Maslow’s hierarchy. Important point to note here is:

1. May be by marrying someone of her elite class, the girl could have been able to fulfill all of her needs, except the Love/Belonging need, in a much better way. But the priority of the Love/Belonging need became so high that it over shadowed the rest of the needs and affected the girl significantly.

Example 4:

The guy and girl from example 3 are living happily with their two kids. However the guy doesn’t feel comfortable whenever they are invited by his in-laws to occasional parties. Usually other relatives of his wife come in big luxurious cars like Honda Accord and Prado, while he has a Suzuki Aulto which he bought after using up all of his savings. We he roams around meeting different in the party, he sees people using high end gadgets like Iphone 4 and Ipad. He uses a Nokia 2600, so he avoids receiving calls during the party. A few days later, he sees the TV commercial of Nokia C series smart phones. He checks the prices and finds that he can buy the lower end phones in the series. He goes and buys the phone with the cash he has, although the cash was for buying new clothes for his wife. He thought that he would buy new clothes for her the next month. Yes she needed them badly, as she had to attend few ceremonies, but she could wait for one more month. From then onwards, he feels more confident when he attends his in-laws’ parties. He doesn’t avoid receiving calls during the party anymore.

Deduction: This example relates to the Esteem needs of Maslow’s hierarchy. Important points to note here are:

1. Esteem needs can have a significant affect on a person’s behavior. We try to get aligned with the social norms and values the society sets. And the more we are close to the norms and values of our society and circle, the more confident and satisfied we feel.

2. Although the guy couldn’t afford to buy the C-Series phone as he had to buy clothes for his wife, his Esteem need demanded from him to spend money. Once he spent that amount, he became more confident and satisfied. He got good value for his money. When a person buys something that he doesn’t really need, he/she is basically fulfilling another need which is not that apparent or obvious.

My Opinion:

In the light of the examples above, I can fairly say that there are various more needs than just the basic needs of food and sex. Some critics classify ‘other needs’ as desires and wants. But then, if a desire or want has the same affect that a basic need has, that desire or want should be treated as a basic need. In the examples above, we saw that apart from the basic needs, other needs can have significant impact on our lives too.

Critics argue that a person won’t die if he doesn’t buy an Iphone. Here, the critics need to refer to example 1. We won’t die if we don’t get food for two days, but does it mean that the food was not a basic need during those two days? So a person who is a born ‘Techy’ and loves technological innovations, will feel depressed if he is not allowed to have access to those innovations and technology. A kid might start losing appetite and sleep if he doesn’t get what he wants. You don’t beat a kid. You ground him or don’t let him play with his gaming console when he misbehaves. Why? Because that’s a punishment for him. So if that kid pays to get the gaming console back, he is not spending more than he needs to. He is only fulfilling his safety need, which is to avoid being continuously punished.

Let’s analyze what different companies have done. Nokia offers phones over a big price range. You can get a Nokia cell phone for Rs 2000 as well as for Rs 50000. What is Nokia doing basically? Is it creating the need of those high end cell phones through marketing or is it just offering products to satisfy need that is already there? In my opinion, there was always a need to communicate seamlessly. Take it this way. We want to see our loved ones while we talk with them on the phone. So the need is there. Suppose Nokia launches a phone tomorrow that has this feature of video call. Will it be called creation of need? No! This is called Product Positioning.

Toyota has the vision of “Making dream cars that are perfectly safe and environment friendly”. Now, to some people, a dream car must be something like Lamborghini Reventon. But to me, a dream car could be one that travels faster than the speed of light. So hypothetically speaking, if 200 years from now, Toyota starts marketing a car that can travel at the speed of light, I will buy it, and I won’t be spending more. I would be fulfilling my dream.

And then we have needs that we ourselves are unaware of. When we donate to a charity organization, we don’t even buy anything. But still we buy ‘self-satisfaction’ – we buy the satisfaction of our SuperEgo (Refer to Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytical Model). Similarly, I might not know that I like to dance because I have never got a chance to dance. But if a girl asks me to dance for the first time, I might like the experience. The Love/Belonging and Self-Actualization needs were always there since my birth. ‘Dancing with a girl’, as a product, responded well to the need that ‘already existed’.

Critics would argue that the need was not there. It was created by that girl. But then, as a matter of fact, more than 50% of the consumer products fail. After doing root cause analysis, one would realize that companies try their best to promote every product. But then why, as the critics would say, ’people get lured’ into buying some products, while they reject the majority of the products supported by the same marketing techniques? The answer is very simple. People will only buy those products that satisfy or appear to satisfy their needs that are already there. No matter how good you promote a product, if the product doesn’t satisfy any of the needs (Basic, Physiological, Esteem etc), the product will fail.

So, a marketer can never create a need. A marketer can never make anyone spend more. Marketers, through effective marketing techniques and strategies, only help consumers to make relations between the products and the needs, and to realize the means through which consumers can satisfy their conscious and unconscious needs. People buy satisfaction of their needs that they have as a part of their nature. Satisfy their need with a hideous portrait like Mona Lisa worth millions of dollars, and they will buy it, without spending more than its value. ‘Economic Utility’ can’t be defined numerically. It varies from person to person. Only the person utilizing the product knows its true worth!!