in character. This fact attracts many readers and alienates some.
A number of criticisms came to me on How to Predict What People Will Buy. “You should write a book that goes deeper into motivation research,” one friend said to me. Another thought that I should tell more about testing techniques. A third person expressed the opinion that I should reveal a little of how ads and filmed commercials are tested on an unconscious level. A fourth thought that I should address management and point out to management why it should use marketing research. A fifth suggested that I should tell about my background and how I began testing on an unconscious level.
It became clear that there was need for another book on controlled marketing research. In this book, I cover what was not covered in How to Predict What People Will Buy.
I named this book Why People Buy. It is a definitive book. It begins with “Basis for Management Decision” and ends with reports of actual studies. In the testing procedures, we do not ask consumers why they buy and they don’t tell us. However, controlled tests, that I describe, reveal what motivates people to buy and what does not. In essence, this means the tests show why they buy. Either “What Motivates People to Buy” or “What Makes Them Buy,” which represents literally what the book deals with, would be a clumsy and awkward title. Therefore, the book is called Why People Buy.
I REMEMBER my father saying about a man who was a great financial success, that he was a “shrewd businessman.” I heard him say on another occasion, that another friend of his was lucky in business; “everything he touches turns into gold.” These two evaluations are typical of my father’s and grandfather’s generation. Even now there are executives, some in large corporations, who make marketing decisions on hunches or conjecture.
The “scientific” approach to marketing is still not used by many organizations. Many manufacturers, who have adopted scientific production methods and scientifically organized production management, still do not plan marketing programs on the basis of facts. Comparatively few executives of small businesses make marketing forecasts on the basis of scientifically controlled market research. The scientific approach to marketing is still new.
Many of the large corporations use various types of marketing research on which they rely and use as a basis for executive judgment. Most executives in large corporations use research on sales of competitive brands, test markets and some other types of check points in planning their marketing programs.
A well-planned marketing program has a specific goal and an operating budget. A marketing plan incorporates an estimate of future sales based on some specific measures of consumer acceptance and marketing conditions.
Economic conditions are not static. Often competitive action could not have been anticipated and given consideration in the initial plan. For either of these two reasons, sales results may not be in accordance with the goals or estimated sales performance. But in a complex market such as ours, management must have marketing plans with specific goals and budgets and operational controls with frequent and regular evaluations of sales results.
If marketing conditions are changed, either because of a general change in our economy or because of the action of competition, the predetermined plan has to be changed on the basis of the new conditions. Whether conditions have changed sufficiently to revise the original plan or whether a special effort should be made to reach the original goal to meet a marketing threat is in the realm of management judgment and decision.
Some executives, particularly heads of small businesses, take this position: “What’s the use of making an elaborate marketing plan, if it has to be changed every three months?” The answer, of course, is that if you don’t have a plan of operations, if you don’t have an operating budget, you are not equipped to make quick changes in the marketing operation to meet the new conditions. You can compare the new marketing conditions with the old ones, if you have a map, a chart or a clear picture of the old conditions. You can have no accurate evaluation of new marketing conditions without having an evaluation of the market for which you originally prepared yourself.
Management can manage efficiently only if it has a clear picture of the interdependent operations of planning and checking, evaluation and control. Management has to provide the initiative and guidance for the planning. It has to evaluate the sales results in the light of the original plan and to control the adjustment to new marketing conditions.
Big business has to operate in this scientific manner. Small businesses have a much greater chance of success or of becoming bigger businesses by using scientific planning and operation. To meet the conditions of a highly competitive market, management has to use a scientific approach to the marketing problems, as well as to the manufacturing operations.
Management’s function is qualitative in each area and in each role. A business will be most successful if the planning is based not merely on any marketing information, but on the most reliable kind of marketing facts. It is management that has to decide which of the available fact gathering methods or agencies have validity and are the most reliable.
There are many market research organizations whose main activities consist of auditing markets, geographic areas, size, character, income level and educational backgrounds of potential consumers. Not all organizations providing this type of information use the same methods of auditing. Some are more reliable than others. Management has to decide which of the available market auditing organizations will provide the best information for market planning.
In the field of predetermining how consumers will react to a new product or to an improvement of an old one, executive judgment is put to a great test. This is because the techniques used in determining consumer attitudes and measuring consumer behavior in relation to the product are very complex. Some of the consumer reaction measuring methods are totally foreign to the business world.
Research techniques for measuring what motivates shoppers were developed outside of the marketing field. Purchase behavior is psychological. Motivations of shoppers are not totally or even basically rational and, therefore, the normal, direct procedures for measuring objective factors are not valid.
Often, the rational aspects of a product have no appeal to consumers. The functional or practical character does not always motivate consumers to buy the product. Management must find devices that will appeal to the potential consumers or users of the product. Emotional appeals, not rational ones, have to be used. Management must find the kind of appeals that will motivate people to buy the product. For this, executives have to go outside of the traditional marketing area.
Special types of research have shown executives of insurance companies that they can sell much more insurance by selling “security in old age” and “security of family’’ instead of an insurance policy. Cosmetics manufacturers have learned from research, directly or indirectly, that they can increase their volume of sales greatly by selling “beauty,’’ instead of cold cream, lipstick or face powder. A well known soap manufacturing company found that it had increased sales greatly by selling “purity,” instead of just plain soap.
Emotional appeals did not originate in the production plant. The behavioral sciences are the source of such sales appeals. Because the behavioral sciences are new and are not in tune with traditional concepts, management has to be very careful in making decisions on which of the techniques or procedures are valid for solving a particular consumer appeal problem.
In a complex and highly competitive marketing situation as exists today, a mere announcement of a
