A Marketing Mix

“You would be amazed to find how often we mislead ourselves, regardless of how smart we think we are, when we attempt to explain why we are behaving the way we do,” Dichter observed in 1960, in his book “The Strategy of Desire”. He held that marketplace decisions are driven by emotions and subconscious whims and fears, and often have little to do with the product itself. Trained as a psychoanalyst, Dichter saw human motivation as an “iceberg”, with two-thirds hidden from view, even to the decision-maker. “What people actually spend their money on in most instances are psychological differences, illusory brand images,” he explained.

At a time when national companies were aggressively jockeying for position among Americans—a suddenly cash-happy and acquisitive bunch—Dichter promised a way to influence consumers' brains. If shopping was an emotional minefield, then strategic marketing could be a gold mine for companies.

Between the late 1930s and 1960s Dichter became famous for transforming the fates of businesses such as Procter & Gamble, Exxon, Chrysler, General Mills and DuPont. His insight changed the way hundreds of products were sold, from cars to cake mix. He pioneered research techniques such as the focus group, understood the power of word-of-mouth persuasion and earned startling fees for his theories. By the late 1950s his global business reached an annual turnover of $1m ($8m today), and he enjoyed a reputation as the Freud of the supermarket age.

Shoppers aren’t too concerned with getting items at a low price. Instead, they’re looking for “superior quality products”—something consumers are increasingly prioritizing when looking to purchase.

Speaking of those scantily clad casino waitresses... I would like to draw your attention to a pair of studies done regarding men's reactions to pretty and scantily clad women. In the 2003 study, th...

It has long been a mystery to me why more mainstream products that are sold to porn-watching adults are afraid to advertise on porn websites. Porn advertising is dirt cheap, and so you’d think that any brand that’s not afraid to admit its customers also like porn would be all over the porn website world with huge ad campaigns. Whiskey and cigarette advertisers used to buy endless full-page ads in PlayBoy and Hustler back in the day; why don’t they now?

Thus I was both heartened and pleased to see that one of the online food-delivery startups has not only taken to porn site advertising, they’ve blogged in detail about why they did it and how well it worked:

While Hallmark was run by a man — or men with a few “poor working girls,” and can be seen as The Man, you can’t deny the serious dedication the company had to targeted marketing. They spent oodles of dollars and gobs of time focused on what sold and who bought it — including focus groups of women. If women weren’t buying the charming illustrations of women in their dainties and picture-laden puns of underthings, Hallmark wouldn’t have made them.Let alone so many of them.

...So one has to at least include the probability that women’s adoration of the female form, our so-called bisexuality or ability to be more fluid in our sexuality, has been around for a long time and perhaps has as much to do with “sex sells,” sexist ads, and our culture’s consumption of pornography as the patriarchy does.