Theory: Classification of consumer needs
To make your customers an offer that you can’t refuse, you need to clearly and clearly understand what exactly your consumer needs. Knowing the needs of your target audience, you can interact more effectively by solving the client’s problem, rather than talking about how good your product is in itself.
Let's figure out what a need is. This concept means a discrepancy between a person’s current and desired state. The greater the discrepancy, the more a person wants to correct it.
Many sociologists and marketers have tried to create their own system for classifying human needs. Perhaps the most famous of them is Maslow's pyramid of needs.
We list the groups of needs in increasing order: physiological, safety, social needs, needs related to respect, needs for self-actualization.
Maslow's pyramid
Another approach is to divide needs into functional and emotional . The latter, in turn, are divided into psychological and social .
Functional needs
are the most obvious. So medicine is supposed to cure a disease, a hat is supposed to warm the head, and the oven is supposed to bake food. These needs are primary, since they are what push the consumer to make a purchase. Unfortunately, meeting functional needs in today's highly competitive market is not enough. Looking at a product from the point of view of functional needs does not provide opportunities for qualitative differentiation from competitors (jeans of different brands are not very different from each other functionally).
In exceptional cases, a department may operate on a functional basis. To do this, you must be the first (and preferably the only) product that satisfies this need, or have some kind of advantage. Allowing you to satisfy a need much better than others (this advantage must be patented to protect it from copying). Satisfying only a functional need does not allow building high-quality long-term communications with consumers.
To build longer-lasting, stronger relationships with your customers, you must meet their emotional needs as well. They are more varied and not as obvious as functional. For example, a product that is a symbol of belonging to a social group satisfies a social need. The same applies to goods that emphasize the status of the owner.
Emotional needs.
The main emotional needs are: – Needs for protection and safety
— Need to reduce costs (financial, time and others)
— Need to increase your resources
- The need to emphasize one’s belonging to a group of people
- The need to express your “inner self”, to emphasize individuality.
And these needs can be divided into two large groups:
Psychological (internal) – needs related to the inner world of a person. This, for example, includes products that reduce or completely eliminate consumer fears (Toyota is the safest car).
Social (external) – these needs arise from the relationship between the individual and society. Man is a social being, and one of his basic needs is acceptance by society. Creating and maintaining a certain image also refers to this type of needs.
Examples of goods and services that solve such needs could be:
- haute couture clothing (emphasizes high status in society)
— things that emphasize femininity/masculinity (help strengthen the gender role)
— eco-products (indicate membership in a social group, emphasize the importance of social responsibility for the consumer).
For example, Alfred Marshall divided the needs into several groups at once:
· Primary (in water and food) and Secondary (watching movies)
· Absolute (need for communication) and Relative (have a page on social networks)
· Higher (aesthetic, spiritual, cognitive) and Lower (related to physiology)
· Positive (need for cognition) and Negative (addictions)
· Urgent and those that can be postponed
· General (all representatives of humanity have) and Special (developed in certain social groups)
· Individual (needs of an individual) and collective (needs of a group of people)
· Normal and due to emergency circumstances
· Private (needs of an individual, family or company) and Public (for example, the need for border protection)
You can identify the needs of your target audience by conducting marketing research. A product that does not satisfy consumer needs cannot exist on the market - there will simply be no demand for it. Of course, consumer demand can be generated, but this will require large expenses.
Often the key to success is identifying the hidden needs of customers. Such needs may reveal an unfilled niche for your product. Be prepared for the fact that your product may have analogues that satisfy the same needs, so studying needs does not replace researching the market as a whole.
Human needs and feelings as the basis of interpersonal relationships.
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A person enters into relationships with others because he has a need for it. Dahl V. in the “Explanatory Dictionary” defined need as need, necessity, demand He: “To demand - to need something, to have a need, to need (to whom), to desire, to want, to covet; seek, urgently, imperatively, as a matter of course.”
Myasishchev defined need as a person’s “gravitation” towards certain objects or activities that determine the system of behavior and experiences of a person in relation to them (Myasishchev, 1957).
Kogan L.N. wrote: “Need is the main link of the entire “mechanism” of people’s social activity, an invariant of its numerous interests, which we consider as the direction, “vector” nature of the need, its specification, and direct manifestation.”
Epicurus is the creator of the first classification of human needs (3rd century BC):
1. natural and necessary, for example, the desire to eat, drink;
2. natural, but not necessary;
3. those that are neither natural nor necessary. Ambition, fame, as well as the desires of the first two groups that reached pathological intensity and became passions.
There are various classifications in modern scientific literature. First of all, these are biogenic and sociogenic needs. For example, Obukhovsky K. believes that need is the property of “an organism to require strictly defined conditions for its normal functioning, without which it cannot maintain a state of internal balance.” If a society, which sets as its goal the satisfaction of the material needs of its constituent people, does not care about the development of the spiritual, then it cannot expect that they will automatically develop so much that they themselves, without coercion, will devote their strength to the development of society. Philosophers warned about the fallacy of this point of view. A mass society will emerge with a psychology of consumption for the sake of consumption, a mass psychology of consumption as the goal of existence. A new person will arise - a mass well-fed, ill-mannered person (Strugatsky, 1976). “Excessive abundance of goods and opportunities leads to the creation of ugly, vicious forms of life, to the emergence of special people - degenerates.”
Thomas W. (1924) listed four basic human needs. 1 - need for security, 2 - need for recognition, 3 - need for friendship, 4 - need for new experience.
One of the basic human needs is the need for communication, which in ontogenesis goes through three phases of development. The first is characterized by the need for emotional contact with one person, which is due to the fact that the child’s “cognitive capacity” is limited. This phase lasts from birth to two years. The second phase, which begins in the third year of life and up to eight years, is characterized by the expansion of the child’s emotional contacts with other people. The third phase is from the ninth year, when the child best satisfies the need for communication in a peer group. To satisfy the need for communication, people establish interpersonal relationships. Shibutani T. believed that “the main analytical unit for the study of interpersonal relationships is feeling.” “Feelings that are formed in early childhood are subsequently transferred to other objects, giving each person a special style of approach to people in general. To test the hypothesis that people are attracted to personifications similar to those that had provided satisfaction in the past, 373 engaged or recently married subjects were studied. Between the spouse and the parent of the opposite sex, no great similarity was found either in physical type or in political views, but a significant relationship was revealed in personality: those who loved their parents sought to choose a person of exactly the same type for marriage, and those who did not loved, they showed a tendency to choose the opposite type... It is no coincidence that Burgess and Cottrell found that happy marriages are most common among the children of happy married couples. Patterns of feeling established in childhood tend to be carried throughout life.”
Social feelings - conjunctive and disjunctive - bringing people together or separating them.
Examples of conjunctive feelings are love and friendship. One of the types of love is unconditional, i.e. not conditioned by anything. A person has the highest value, regardless of what role he plays or what status he has. Hegel wrote that “the true essence of love is to renounce the consciousness of oneself, to forget oneself in another Self and, however, in this disappearance and oblivion to find oneself for the first time and master oneself.”
Friendship is a type of interpersonal relationship based on a community of interests and mutual affection, practical mutual assistance and revenue, accompanied by emotionally expressive feelings. The need for friendship is vital for humans. “No one... can live in a society under the yoke of constant dislike and bad opinion of their loved ones and those with whom one communicates. This burden is too heavy for human patience, and from irreconcilable contradictions there must be one who can find pleasure in society and yet be insensitive to the contempt and dislike of his fellows,” noted J. Locke (Quoted by).
In a group, relationships between people of different social statuses are accompanied by the following feelings.
1. Condescending feeling. For example, a feeling of love for a subordinate. The subordinate is never treated as an equal, and if he tries to demand equal rights, he will be “put in his place.” Shibutani T. writes: “If a person occupies a dominant position, his conjunctive feelings towards subordinates can be designated as condescension. The object is clearly an inferior being, but it is a source of satisfaction - as in the case of a loyal servant, an obedient child, or a devoted sycophant. You may find a woman who calls her husband her “second child,” and often husbands treat their wives in much the same way as a landowner treats his serfs. The boss bestows favor on the object of love - he pays him attention, trains him, gives advice, praises him for a job well done, and if he punishes him, then “for his own good.” The object is often personified as a child-like creature: not very smart, emotional and unstable, not yet capable of responsibility. He is treated with love and attention as a child, but the inferiority of the object is always tacitly assumed: he is treated condescendingly and without the respect accorded to equals, his right to make decisions is often usurped. The extreme case of such personification is a fool, from whom nothing serious can be demanded. Because he is considered incompetent, he enjoys privileges that sometimes border on license. Despite his “inferiority,” he is appreciated and popular.”
2. Hero-worship is the feeling of love of a subordinate for his superior. The boss is presented as the embodiment of the group ideal. Joy arises when the idol notices the idolater. I want to please him. The fight against dissidents. The boss is taken as the standard. “If a dependent person,” writes Shibutani, “treats his boss as a desired object, a personification close to the ideal is created. In a special case, the dominant side becomes the object of hero veneration. The objects of such veneration can be a father, an older brother or a skillful athlete for a boy, a brave leader for a group of warriors, a saint or martyr for a religious sect, etc. The corresponding pattern of behavior prescribes joy when a person is noticed by a hero, and anger at those who dared to expose his weaknesses; a strong desire to show preference to the hero and give him his due; anxiety when the hero is in danger or if the subject may be rejected by the hero. The hero's biography arouses great curiosity. Fans eagerly spread rumors about their idol and try to learn some of his habits. The hero is often used as a model by which a person tries to build his life." 3. Contempt. A person with power feels antipathy towards a subordinate. Contact with the despised person is avoided and distance is maintained. Pleasure is experienced when a subordinate squirms under the impossible task assigned to him. Shibutani T. writes: “If partners have unequal power, disconjunctive feelings also acquire specific characteristics. The dominant person's orientation toward subordinates who do not satisfy her can best be described as contempt. Such a person usually insists on maintaining social distance, bombarding the subordinate with a stream of critical, cynical and skeptical comments about his abilities. Ironic, completely shameless contempt is sometimes shown by people who are themselves objects of worship. Children surrounded by excessive care often look down on their parents, like idols of “slaves of love” who are ready to make any sacrifice for them. They take pleasure in making unreasonable demands and then watching their admirers suffer as they try to fulfill their overlord's every demand. Dominance of any kind implies lack of respect; but when the subordinate party is viewed as a base object, disrespect sometimes turns into sadism."
4. Hatred. The subordinate has antipathy towards the boss. The subordinate becomes very sensitive to the mistakes and mistakes of the boss. If he feels that he will get away with it, then he is crossing the boundaries of submission. “Hate is a feeling known, apparently, to everyone,” writes T. Shibutani. “A person becomes sad when the object of hatred is healthy and prosperous, he experiences rage and disgust in his presence, he rejoices when he fails, and he experiences anxiety when he succeeds.” Because these impulses are usually judged, they are often suppressed. But they are revealed in expressive movements - in a quickly flashing smile when the hated person stumbles, a grimace of disgust when he succeeds, or an indifferent shrug of the shoulders when he is in danger. It is sometimes said that a person cannot hate those whom he knows closely. In reality this is not the case. If social distance is reduced, there is much more opportunity for hatred to develop. Indeed, perhaps the most intense form of hatred is vindictiveness, which develops when a person turns his anger against someone he previously loved and trusted.”
Feelings, therefore, are regulators of interpersonal relationships in a group. No less important functions are performed by popularity and attractiveness.
People who received the highest number of choices in the sociometric test, i.e. those with the highest sociometric status are the most popular. Popularity is the degree to which an individual is attractive to others. Popularity should be distinguished from such manifestations of affection as love and friendship. Popularity is associated with group evaluation, friendship is associated with personal relationships. The popularity of an individual is determined by the set of personality traits and qualities that are especially highly valued in a given group (for example, self-confidence, self-esteem, sense of humor, etc.).
Attraction - (from Latin attrahere - to attract, attract) - the attractiveness of one person to another. Interpersonal attractiveness is based on reciprocity. “It is difficult to come up with a diabolical punishment,” wrote W. James, as if someone found himself in a society of people where no one would pay attention to him. If no one turned around when we appeared, if no one answered our questions, if everyone who met us deliberately did not recognize us and treated us like inanimate objects. Then we would be overcome by a certain kind of rage, powerless despair, from which the most severe physical torment would be a relief, if only during these torments we felt that, despite the hopelessness of our situation, we still had not fallen so low as not to deserve attention.”
Social perception.
The first researcher of social perception (in terms of interpersonal perception) was Aristotle, since it was he who drew attention to the importance of emotions and their correct assessment in human communication.
For a long time, scientists did not differentiate the concept of perception. The term “social perception” was proposed by J. Brunner, who identified it with the concept of “social cognition”, “knowledge of another”. This happened in connection with the clarification of the perception process. In contrast to human perception of inanimate objects, developing the so-called. “a new look” at the problem of perception, J. Brunner in 1947 proposed this term. Another scientist who drew attention to the difference in human perception of animate and inanimate objects was Heider: “We will talk about non-social perception when we mean the perception of inanimate objects, and ... about social perception when we mean the perception of another person.” Today, ideas about the process of social perception are supplemented by the following provisions:
1. in the process of perception, mutual influence of people occurs;
2. the process of perception is accompanied by the desire to understand another person;
3. understanding people is impossible without a general knowledge of what the personality of another is;
4. a complete understanding of the personality of another person is impossible without establishing interpersonal relationships with him;
5. the result of the perception of another person is the creation of a perceptual image;
6. social perception is always mediated by a system of values, social standards of perception;
7. the object of perception can be an individual belonging to “one’s own group”, an individual; belonging to an “out” group, “in-group”, “out-group”, the group’s perception of its member, the group’s perception of a representative of another group, the group’s perception of itself, and finally, the group’s perception as a whole of another group.
The process of social perception is possible in the presence of at least 2 people, both of whom are active subjects. Therefore, one of the pressing problems is mutual understanding in the process of perception. Mutual understanding “can be interpreted in different ways: either as an understanding of the goals, motives, and attitudes of an interaction partner, or as not only understanding, but also acceptance, sharing of goals, motives, and attitudes, which allows not only to “coordinate actions,” but also to establish a special kind of relationships: intimacy, affection, expressed in feelings of friendship, sympathy, love."
The importance of mutual understanding is important, firstly because the individual, by getting to know another, is formed himself, and secondly because the success of organizing coordinated actions with him depends on the degree of accuracy of “reading” another person. “The idea of another person is closely related to the level of one’s own self-awareness: the more fully another person is revealed, the more complete the idea of oneself becomes. In the course of getting to know another person, several processes are simultaneously carried out: an emotional assessment of the other, an attempt to understand the structure of his actions, and the construction of a strategy for one’s behavior.”
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