Needs arise from the personality and lifestyle of the consumer. A need is defined as the difference between an actual and desired state of being. What this means is that fulfilling needs is the process in which the consumer transforms their lifestyle and gives expression to their personality and values.

There are two types of need:

• Innate needs: these are automatic, a part of survival e.g. physiological, like eating and drinking / utilitarian (solving basic problems) like filling a car’s tank with fuel.
• Acquired needs: these are learnt in response to culture and environment e.g. self-expressive needs (building and maintaining the self-concept) born out of social and aesthetic values and lifestyle.

Motivations involve all of the drives, urges, wishes and desires that moderate the consumer’s product choice.

The distinction between needs, wants, motivations and drives can be very confusing.

To illustrate how closely these concepts are tied together, each is briefly defined below:

Motivations: this is the force within individuals that impels them to action; how behavior gets started and is energized.

Wants: A want is a specific satisfier for a need. This can best be explained by the following example: “I need food, and I want a hamburger”.

Drives: A drive defines the strength of the motivation to satisfy the need – how much energy and resources (e.g. time and money) the consumer is willing to expend in fulfilling the need.

There are two types of drive:

Product drives: this relates to the type of product or service involved in fulfilling the need. Some of these drives are: prior experience of the product, strength of will, extent of freedom of choice, degree of product involvement, and choice difficulty.

Universal drives: these apply, in some measure, to all categories.; they often -

• are indicative of broad social movements, such as aspiration (upward mobility), pleasure (instant gratification) or variety seeking (born out of existential boredom) and conspicuous consumption.
• or reflect common, but deep-rooted, factors reflecting the personality and values of the consumer: such as power-seeking, reassurance and freedom-seeking

In the MarketFORENSICS System needs and motivations are analyzed and grouped together to form need states.

This is done by pilot, qualitative research which identifies all of the underlying needs, urges, wishes and desires involved in brand and product choices for the category concerned. These are then taken through to quantitative research as a single inventory of all the motivational processes that we have identified. Using this inventory of need states, we ask:

1. Importance / strength of the drive to satisfy the need?
2. Extent that the brand satisfies the need?
3. Extent that a brand is actually chosen on the basis of the need?
4. How do you feel if you are able to satisfy the need?
5. How do you feel if you are unable to satisfy the need?

There are a number of options available within MarketFORENSICS for in-depth analysis of the role of need states. Some of these are:

Need State Profiling: depicts the importance of different need states for a particular brand, and identifies the main need states underlying its choice

Brand Performance - Need State vs Expectations: reflects the extent to which a brand lives up to consumer expectations, based on their needs

Force-field Mapping: this looks at how need states work for or against a brand, and identifies the overall strength of opportunities and barriers for the brand.

Illustrations of these are depicted below:

Need State Profiling for a Particular Brand, Product or Service: