Thursday, February 28, 2008

Motivation/Needs and Maslow's Theory

Today I need sleep. But in the pursuit of higher education and happiness sleep is something not available in this context. I require different needs and needs and motivations are different for everyone.

Needs can start with being a:
Specific Needs--> Individual Needs--> Times--> In or bigger different cultural, social context

What separates a Need from a Want? Some of the examples I came up with were that a Need is something you cannot live without and a want is something you want to fulfill a certain desire.
Air is something you need, Smoking is something you want for whatever reason that you do want to die a slow and painful death.
In retrospect, a Need is a basic and biological motive which is where MOTIVATION comes in. Motivation is an activated state in which compels and leads an individual to a goal oriented behavior.

To give an example of I am motivated to work towards a career so I do anything I can to better my expertise in the field of study. I would be motivated to purchase textbooks and supplies that is required to succeed. Furthermore, motives can be both negative and positive.

Positive motivation could be positively motivated to live a healthy long life.
Negative motivation could be negatively motivated to never eat McDonald's for the sake of your weight.

Maslow's hierarchy of Needs



This is a diagram of the hierarchy of needs. There exists 5 levels of importance in every human being theorized by Maslow. Every level (4 lower levels) of physiological needs must be met starting from the bottom of the necessities. To put into motion, A man would be motivated to work towards a doctoral degree to raise his family. He must first satisfy food water and sleep. From there is safety, his health and his family's his current income. The next is his friendship and love and support. What follows is that he seeks respect from being an almighty doctor and sense of achievement and finally, his acceptance of the fact that it will take quite a bit of hard work and effort and time to reach his self actualized goals.

Biogenic/Psychogenic drives
Motives are generally put under two classifications, Biogenic and Psychogenic. Biogenic are your basic needs like food water and air while psychogenic is the social, cultural and intellectual aspects.

Knowing this I have selected 3 ads that appeal to individual values:



This ad is an ad for a Drug Prevention Campaign.
The Headline reads: Drug users finance crime and as in all financing, pay dearly. Don’t let dealers have fun at your cost.

Advertising Agency: D/Araújo, Florianópolis >> Agency Location: Brazil >> Creative Director: Edu Borges >> Art Director: Alexandre Amaral >> Copywriter: Igor Becker >> Photographer: Jeferson Caldart >>

Value: appeals the Safety and assurance to stop your kids from doing drugs and drug dealers from killing innocent people.



This is an ad for sleeping medication where they show each of the bubbles of foam numbered as if you were counting them just to fall asleep.

Client: Culina >> Advertising Agency: Grey >> Agency Location: Singapore >> Creative Directors: Koh Hwee Peng, Justin Lim >> Art Directors: Koh Hwee Peng, Nick Tan >> Copywriter: Justin Lim >> Photographer: Ric Tang, Shutter Bug >>

Value: Sleep. The first physiological need on maslow's pyramid.



Value: Love and Thirst. This could be argued to be the value of physiological as well as love and intimacy.