What are the basic motivators that drive a person? This question sits at the heart of marketing. Marketer exist in order to create value for customers. Only by doing so will they be able to capture value from customers. However, without a basic understanding of motivating factors - needs and wants - marketers simply cannot be effective. Human motivations have been studied for a long time now. Many models of human behaviour have been proposed. Anyone who has worked in a transnational corporation has come across one of them namely Maslow's Hierarchy.
The question of what motivates people becomes a little simpler to understand and frame if we think in terms of needs and wants. These two terms are usually interchanged in normal conversations but for marketing purposes, we need to draw a clear distinction. For our purposes (and as defined by Kotler), needs are basic drivers while wants are expressions of needs.
Using the model that Maslow proposed, I believe that the very basic motivating factors driving a person are just two: food and security. These are primal needs. Without them no one can survive for very long. Food is a need. Without it there is no survival. What kind of food to eat is a want. Similarly security is a need. What kind of security is a want. If we go up the hierarchy of needs a little, there is the need for sex. This group of three: food, security and sex are basic needs. I have not put sex as a primal need. The reason for that is that sex is not necessary for the survival of the individual unlike food and security. However it is a very strong motivating factor - so strong that it has to be categorized as a basic need. This troika is also expressed colloquially as wine, women and song.
We have identified two level of needs. Primary needs: food and shelter and basic needs: food, sex and shelter. These needs are expressed in many different ways. The ways in which they are expressed are called wants. The ways in which these basic needs are expressed have resulted in some of the oldest economic activities that people have engaged in. Going up the needs hierarchy a little more, once the primary needs (and hopefully the basic needs as well) are met, a person starts thinking about meeting the higher level of needs.
What are these higher level needs? Humans are material, social and spiritual creatures. The basic needs are essential material needs. But there are other needs that need to be met if a person is not to be a one-dimensional being. Being social creatures, humans have an inherent need to develop emotional attachments. These bonds are primarily towards family; then acquaintances (including friends), then clan and/or religious community members and finally all others. It has been shown that these emotional attachments are literally necessary for a long and healthy life. No man is an island unto himself - atleast not for long. The need for emotional attachment is expressed in different ways. Along with the need for emotional attachment is the need to communicate. These two needs - the need for emotional attachment and the need to communicate are fundamental needs.
So now we can understand that there is a needs hierarchy and its shape also becomes a little clearer. First there are the primary needs: food and security. Without them, survival is not possible. Then there is the basic need: sex. Food, security and sex are extremely powerful driving factors.Then there are the fundamental needs: emotional attachment and the need to communicate. Fundamental needs have to be met at some level and different people have different levels at which they satisfy these needs.
Going up the needs hierarchy further, we enter the realm of higher needs. These are spiritual in nature. They nourish the nebulous entity known as the human spirit. At the root of these needs lies the need to learn/explore. Learning and exploration are in may respects two sides of the same coin. Learning anything inherently has strong aspects of exploration while exploration inherently strongly involves aspect of learning. Learning/exploration can be either internal or external or both. If it is internal, then it can lead to the highest level of Maslow's hierarchy - self actualization. So there we have it. A complete hierarchy of needs (or atleast as complete as I can think of).
To recap:
Primary needs
Food
Security
Basic needs (all of the above and)
Sex
Fundamental needs (all of the above and)
Emotional attachment
Communicate
Spiritual needs (all of the above and)
Learning
Exploration
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