There are two target markets we look at when coming up with a campaign.

There are the winners and then there are the losers, but we can only sell one at a time.

Sounds harsh, but bear with me for a second. At any given time of our life or in our day, we sometimes feel like a winner, while other times we feel like a no-good lousy loser.

Popular culture, social media and other mediums remind us every day what losers we are. Our friends are posting posts of their holidays, their “lifestyle”, their happy relationships, great bodies, the accessories they own, and all the super fun they are having.

And we are just missing out all the time.

Why? Because sometimes we feel we are losers. So we need a wise marketer to come and rescue us, immediately!

The way this is done is by selling products to targeted audiences:

SELLING THE PERCEPTION OF WINNING

If we are aiming products at fit, healthy people who want to feel great, we need to aim or marketing to keep them feeling great. They want to remain winners, so target your adverts to keep them feeling like winners.

This is common with sporting gear where no matter how lousy they are at golf, someone is adamant about over-spending on another $1000 golf club, why? Because they have the perception of being a champion – a winner.

On the flip side, if you sell products that are unhealthy, your target audience is, dare I say it, on the less healthy side. Although they may feel like losers, selling them products that invoke satisfaction, or appeal to greed, gluttony, or sloth, purchasing your product will leave them satisfied, and feeling like winners.

This is called maintaining levels of gratification by selling the perception of happiness.

AIMING AT “LOSERS” TO BECOME WINNERS

If we are targeting products to turn people into healthier human beings, we need to retarget our advert to help them make better decisions. Better life choices, better foods, better services. This is an audience that will see immediate results and upliftment in their life after purchasing your product.

This is called elevating levels of gratification.

AIMING TOWARDS SLOTH, GLUTTONY

When people are feeling vulnerable, guilty, sad or lonely, or have a desire to feel better, they buy things they do not really need. Corporate marketers know this trick, and more likely than not, this is the majority of products that are flooding markets, purely because most of us suffer from this.

This is the consummatory reward target.

Either way, it’s just retail therapy

Marketers know the psychological aspects behind consumers, and they exploit it to their limit. They target their products, even lame ones, to resonate with our emotions to bring us to the point of selling the idea to us first. That’s the gateway drug. One more click and we’re hooked.

Is it bad?

Who cares? A marketer’s job is to sell; your job is to buy with freedom of choice and with no gun aimed at your head.

This seems like an invasive means of selling that seemingly preys on weaknesses. Sure, but no matter who you are, you are not an exception to adopting consummatory rewards.

Freedom of choice is always there to either uplift your life or to use a temporary relief by means of consuming.

Sell me stuff to make me feel better!

This applies to every product available, from glow in the dark toilet paper, liquid detergents, and car tyres, all the way to the latest mobile phone.

If the advert promises us to not be losers anymore, we will buy, and become wonderful again, for now. The same applies if you are selling plumbing supplies, fishing tackle or frying pans.

• Tell me that your plumbing company will save me from having to shove my hand down my own toilet.
• Tell me that your organic-nano-carbon-graphite fishing rods with solar GPS will guarantee me to be a winner. Convince me that I can beat Willy, Billy and Jim at the next “fish-‘n-meet” and be on the cover of next month’s Hicksville newsletter.
• Tell me that your non-stick-vegan-pet-friendly-non-stick frying pan will boost my useless cooking skills so Mary Jane will finally make out with me.

Food, cars, vacations, homes, useless ornaments, coffee beans, saucers, linen, ottomans and kettles, they’re all the same. You have to make me feel as though I am a winner when I buy your products. The trick is identifying your audience, and this is where targeted emotions come into play. Ever noticed that sports car manufacturers never advertise their cars with cowboys, dusty roads and short-jean-pant-wearing ladies playing with their lassos?

Why? Because Ferraris don’t look good in cow pastures.

Ever noticed that massive 3-tonne double-cab pickup trucks with extended back-loader, 35inch “gator-rough-rider-tyres”, carbon fibre bull-bars and rugged headlights are not marketed outside the Burj Khalifa or on the Monaco strip?

Why? Because hard-core-red-neck vehicles don’t bring glamour to draw drop-dead-gorgeous, gormless sugar babies willing to “put out”.

Target your audience, let it resonate, and let them buy. But it takes some out-the-box thinking and damn hard work, but it comes with great results!