Human Instincts play a huge role in brand marketing: How?

 

Marketers create work that evoke human behaviour and emotions. Human instincts largely affect the decision-making of the consumers. Brands often find fine-drawn ways to appeal to those human instincts, both- positive and negative. There are basically five positive human instincts, which are as follows:

SATYA- TRUTH

Brands often promise to portray the truth while advertising or marketing their product. One of which, was McDonald’s that had come up with a campaign that said- “Our Food, Your Questions”, where a live response team would answer all the questions asked by customers. This campaign helped in promoting the brand name as well.

 DHARMA- RIGHTEOUSNESS

There have been that promote religious harmony through their ad campaigns. One such ad was Brooke Bond Red Label’s Ganesh Chaturthi ad of 2018. This 2 min advertisement showed a Muslim man making and selling Ganpati idols to a Hindu man and ends with the tagline #ShreeGaneshApnepanKa. The product’s original tagline is Swaad Apnepan Ka.

 

SHANTI- PEACE

Shanti or Peace is necessary to live a long and happy life. The same is shown by an ad carved by the deodorant brand AXE for its new line of product- AXE PEACE. Moments of war have been brilliantly tied with music, which gives out such a powerful yet emotional message to the audience. The tagline of the advertisement was “Make Love, Not War”

 PREMA- LOVE

Love is a very strong emotion that can quickly grab the attention of the consumers. In 2011, KFC had released an advertisement 'Love is Forever' that represented love beautifully. The ad begins with an old couple dancing around on Ellie Goulding’s Your Song, and while they dance, they grow younger. The ad ends where the couple is shown as kids, and stops at their tagline ‘So Good’.

AHIMSA- NON-VIOLENCE

Anything that involves religious values draws a lot of attention. The 2013 Save our Sisters campaign against domestic violence, girl trafficking portrayed the imagery of The Abused Goddesses. It pin points the juxtaposition of the oppressed Indian women and the worship of female deities in Hinduism.

 

 

Now, we'll talk about the negative human instincts with regard to marketing. 

KAMA- LUST, CRAZE, DESIRE

Indian brands like Mahindra Group and Wild Stone Company, have been using ‘Kama’ as a branding strategy ever since. One of the major examples, being that of Mahindra Plush New XUV500 car. In 2018, Mahindra released an advertisement which showed a man rescuing a woman from danger and zoomed his XUV500 across a desert, then cut to next scene, he introduces her as his wife. The tagline for this campaign was “May your life be full of stories”.

KRODHA- ANGER, HATRED

Negative marketing is a strategy which aims to engage the target audience to the brand, even if they show hatred. Example is Amazon, which has both good and bad reviews for a product. The brand deliberately doesn’t remove the hate comments on a product, because that is what will keep the customer engaged to the platform for a longer period of time.

 

LOBHA- GREED, MISERLINESS, NARROW-MINDEDNESS

Brands are always in a never-ending competition to grab the consumer’s attention and since, the world has gone digital now, brands do it by serving campaigns online. ‘Greed’ is the perfect emotion to grab a customer’s attention. Online payment applications like PayTm, PhonePe, GooglePay use the brand strategy to provide the customer will cashback, free coupons and free gift cards that make the customer use their application even more.

MOHA- DELUSION, EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT

While creating emotional marketing campaigns, brands keep in mind the factor that will engage their target audience and increase their reach. Coca Cola’s “Choose Happiness” campaign in 2015 was a strong example that encouraged the audience to share their happy memories. Just like an old expression says “people buy emotionally, then justify logically”.

 

MADA- EGO, PRIDE, STUBBORNNESS

Using emotions as a marketing tool directly affects the buying process of a product. Nike marketing strategy is usually ‘ego focused building’. Their strategy is to hit the customer’s ego and to portray the brand as one for people who achieve great thing. Nike's strategy is not to make you think that you need Nike products to succeed, but to make you think that you want it because you will succeed.

 

MATSARYA- ENVY, JEALOUSY, SHOW OF VANITY

For years now, brands have been using ‘envy’ as a marketing tool to boost their sales. Brands often take advantage of the customers’ tendency to compare themselves to others. For example, few years back, Kansai Nerolac Paints Limited launched an ad for Nerolac Suraksha, where a postman delivers mail at two houses- one which has a nameplate having high education degrees but not an appealing exterior, and another which is paint beautifully. The postman doesn’t like the former one, but once it is painted with Nerolac paints, he immediately gets attracted towards that house.