Linked to the concept of Need Want & Demand
The wheel of marketing moves on 3 important spokes of Need, Want & Demand. Every strategy, every success story rests on the right understanding of current needs of customers, linking them to wants and generating demand out of it from all different stakeholders.
Whenever in the management domain we think of the concept of ‘need’, the very famous Maslow’s need hierarchy model emerges in our mind. Maslow developed this model stating that different needs/motivations of individuals lie in a hierarchical order with physiological (basic need of food, water, shelter) at the lowest, then safety needs, social needs, esteem needs & on top is the self- actualization needs. When lower level needs get fulfilled, then individuals get motivated towards fulfilling their next high level need.
With the onset of Covid pandemic and ensuing miseries, at whichever level of motivation one was, for everyone physiological & safety needs became most prominent.
After a small brief on Maslow’s need hierarchy model and different levels of needs, now I would link the concept of need-want-demand to the different pieces of news I came across recently.
On Earth Day, 22 April, 2021, the following three articles appeared on WPP, Godrej and Wipro.
A few excerpts from the news stories below for your better understanding.
Please read the excerpts given below or the articles linked above for comprehensive understanding.
Now in the light of these excerpts, I present my analysis. Hope you find the story and the learning.
Need is Basic human requirement which is universal like the safety need which every individual living in any part of the world will have, though its importance & prominence may differ in different stages of one’s life cycle. Form that a human need takes as shaped by culture, environment of the place and individual personality, it is called want. Like in a country where rate of road accidents is high, people there will be wanting safety from these accidents, a solution to this problem. If any country has frequent earthquakes, there citizens will be wanting solution from this constant risk to life. In these countries for eg., insurance companies will devise products which will speak of value surrounding these problems faced by a country and thus be able to generate demand.
Need for safety remains constant, but wants get defined differently. Marketers when create products and services fitting into a need and customized to the want of a segment, and that segment of people see value and are ready to spend money to buy those products and services, it becomes demand. So wants when combine with buying power, it becomes demand.
Now referring to the different news pieces, where big companies like WPP, Godrej, Wipro declared their pledge, which definitely focus on the basic need of safety, second level need as per Maslow’s need hierarchy model. In the current pandemic hit world, the most urgent attention has gone towards the want of a safe and healthy environment, where carbon emissions are reduced, our natural resources & precious species are saved, global warming is slowed and so much more.
Big conglomerates picking this up as their agenda for future, deciding to go in line with the objective of the Paris Agreement to cap temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, indicates demand as the idea is being bought towards the bigger good and investments being made in that direction. Here I have linked the concept of need-want-demand to idea marketing, which when adopted would definitely lead to image building of these organizations, rising brand equity and thus attracting customers as well as investors.
Following article covered in HT Mint dated 11/05/2021 highlights this
I feel that the companies buying the idea & implementing the same as part of their purpose driven strategy, also act as influencers for others to adopt the same. As is clear from the announcement that Amazon and Global Optimism made on Feb 17, 2021, that 20 new signatories around the world have joined The Climate Pledge
With this, as mentioned in the clipping below, now a total of 53 companies, representing almost every sector of the economy, have committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, demonstrating the global impact of The Climate Pledge.
From all news clippings discussed above, the concept of need-want-demand gets presented as follows:
Need highlighted is the safety need
Want which is getting shaped out of this need as per the current situation around, is the want of a safe & healthy environment with least destruction to climate
Sense of responsible business behavior among corporates. International level agreements like the Paris Agreement inducing corporates to take up Climate Pledge. Customers & investors getting attracted to corporates which are climate positive. All this is making the idea of working towards safe & healthy environment being bought and implemented extensively by the organizations. This indicates the demand.
Hope the concepts of need-want-demand relating to idea marketing came out clear through the analysis of different news clippings.
My next article in this section will again focus on the same concepts but relating to product marketing.
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