Introduction
According to the Freudian motivation hypothesis, an individual’s conduct, including purchasing patterns, is shaped by unconscious psychological influences, such as hidden wants and motives. This hypothesis was created by Sigmund Freud, who was also a physician and is known as the father of psychoanalysis. The use of Freudian motivation theory is widespread in various industries, including sales and marketing, to better understand why consumers select the items they do. A more precise application of Freud’s theory is the connection between a product’s characteristics, such as touch, taste, or smell, and the memories it might cause in a person. Understanding how a product’s components elicit a consumer’s emotional response helps a marketer or salesperson determine how to persuade a customer to buy.
Freud developed a structural model of the human mind later in his career. He hypothesized that the id, ego, and superego are the three different entities. The id, the primary entity, is present from birth. It forms our most fundamental instincts, such as the desire for pleasure and gratification. The ego grows as we grow out of infancy. It teaches us how to satiate the id’s needs in a way acceptable to society (Freud 15).
Marketing Tactics of Selling to the Unconscious
The superego eventually develops and brings with it our morals. It is well known that you must communicate with the id to sell to the ego. The finest sales copywriters know this and constantly address their audience by name. They try to play on primal urges, such as the desire for pleasure or to escape suffering.
One of the first to translate Freud’s concepts into consumer marketing was Edward Bernays, known as “the father of public relations,” in his obituary (Nadler and McGuigan 160). The capacity of Bernays, Freud’s nephew, to influence American consumers’ thoughts helped him achieve fame. According to the Freudian motivation theory, sales result from consumers gratifying unconscious needs, like the fear of being exposed to the public when naked, and cognitive, practical wants, like window coverings like blinds.
If a salesperson attempts to convince a customer to buy furniture, they can inquire whether this is the customer’s first independent residence. If the customer responds positively, the salesperson might add how cozy or comfortable the furniture is, creating a sense of security. Freud thought the conscious and unconscious minds might be distinguished within the human psyche.
Understanding the Id, Ego, and Superego in Marketing
The conscious mind represents the ego by the thoughts, memories, perceptions, and feelings that give a person a sense of identity and personality (Nadler and McGuigan 155). A person’s naturally predetermined impulses from birth make up their id, which stands for the unconscious mind. Additionally, the superego is reflected in the fact that not everyone behaves impulsively, as the moderating influence of societal norms and taboos. Concentrating on consumers’ conscious and unconscious motives and the importance of societal expectations, these concepts can assist market researchers in determining why a consumer has made a specific purchase.
Companies will hire market researchers to unearth the hidden motivations of a chosen group of consumers to identify what might influence their purchasing habits when they want to determine the likelihood that a new product will succeed. They can use role-playing, picture interpretation, phrase completion, word association, and other methods to find these more profound meanings. Such activities can teach researchers about how consumers respond to things and, as a result, how to promote them best. For instance, purchasing a specific computer brand might boost confidence and a sense of accomplishment (Nadler and McGuigan 164). Marketers can use these details to develop brand identification.
Symbolism, Subconscious Desire, and the “Got Milk?” Case
According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality, the id, ego, and superego are three components of the human mind that form at various times throughout our lives. These three factors produce complex human behaviors manifest in a person’s feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Our primal urges are contained in the Id, which primarily follows the pleasure principle and has two primary objectives: seeking pleasure and avoiding suffering.
According to Freud, the ego emerges from the id and makes sure that the id’s impulses can be communicated in a way that is appropriate for the outside world (Arens 87). It functions according to the reality principle, which aims to satiate the id’s needs in reasonable and proper methods for social settings. The superego, or sense of good and wrong, is a part of our personality that contains our internalized moral principles and ideals that we learn from our parents and society. It offers standards for making decisions and starts to develop around the age of five.
For example, the intrinsic milk transference mechanism and the ensuing displays of want and fulfillment in the “Got Milk?” advertisement prove this stage. To put it simply, the id wants milk. As popularly recognized by consumers, milk typically comes in a glass, which the person wishing to drink it places their lips around. Given that the lips are the oral stage’s most sensory organs by design, it is unsurprising to think that milk is the most comforting and familiar substance (Arens 87).
Drinking milk from a smooth glass creates a bond between the drinker and their mother. Milk consumption satisfies the consumer and arouses a sexual urge in the mother. Milk consumption reinforces the mother’s authority over her child.
A child’s oral fixation and level of underlying sexual desire increase with the amount of alcohol they consume. Advertisers exploit the male son’s tendency to outgrow his father by promising outcomes like fantastic skin and hair, good teeth and bones, and superb muscle tone. The son obeys his mother because she promises him sexual virility and encourages him to drink milk. This is done in the hopes that he will become strong enough to take his father’s position as the ideal male for his mother, the established authority, and the center of power. Therefore, the older milk slogan “Milk. It does a body good” serves as the basis for the male son’s inducement to unseat the controlling father at the direction of the commanding mother.
Conclusion
Freud frequently compared the unconscious mind to an iceberg when describing it. One only has the tip of the iceberg, or consciousness, on the outside. Nevertheless, the unconscious is the most significant and crucial component underneath the surface.
In Freud’s opinion, the most essential aspect of the mind is the portion we cannot see. Nearly everyone used an iceberg image in their presentations or marketing during the early stages of neuromarketing. The use of the iceberg metaphor has fallen out of favor in more recent years.
According to Freudian philosophy, human behavior is more heavily influenced by our unconscious than most people realize. Advertising tactics frequently appeal to the conscious and unconscious mind, which is unsurprising. Numerous psychological factors can affect where and how we spend our money.
Some scientists claim that the unconscious mind makes 95% of our daily judgments. Additional aspects, such as voice tone and color, store environment, package design, and many others, impact our subconscious. This affects our perception of a brand and its goods.
Works Cited
Arens, Katherine. “Freud: The Making of an Illusion by Frederick Crews.” Journal of Austrian Studies 51.3 2018: 85–87. Web.
Freud, Sigmund. Recommendations to physicians practicing psycho-analysis. Vol. 12. 1912.
Nadler, Anthony, and Lee McGuigan. “An impulse to exploit: the behavioral turn in data-driven marketing.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 35.2 2018: 151–165. Web.