Welcome to the winter of our discontent.
We are poorer, more anxious and yet hopeful. For many of us, these economic times mean a first-time trip DOWN Maslow's Hierarchy.
For the last 60 years, we have been travelling UP the pyramid. We have spent our time and money embracing social and spiritual values, distancing ourselves from the more primal needs.
Two recent data points illustrate the downshift:
● Gun sales have soared by 60% since the November election.
● More than half of America's opera companies have cut or eliminated their season schedules since October.
What Do You Think?
Share your thoughts with us. Go to
www.corestrategies.blogspot.com and tell us what YOU are seeing out there.
Abraham Maslow first created his Theory of Human Motivation in 1943, in a time of economic renewal. People were expanding their personal and social horizons.
The modern explosion of human potential has defined our world and created the American economic miracle. Do we REALLY think the last 60 years of growth are coming to an end? We do not think so. Innovation is alive and well.
Consumers want to embrace the new, if it can be made affordable and understandable to them. As marketers, we need to use this time of turmoil to look beyond the derivative re-spin of old products, to true innovations that meet peoples’ needs up and down Maslow’s Hierarchy.
One fundamental thing sets Core Strategies apart. All of us in the company have lived in your shoes. We have been working marketing managers, advertisers, ad agency people, product managers, data analysts and, yes, even marketing research weenies. There is probably not another marketing research and insight company in the world that can empathize more with your project or marketing situation.
Because of that, we know that research is only a tool, not an answer. It takes more than a consumer survey to design a new product. Focus groups cannot tell you how to position your brand. Insights from research play a vital role. But to get the answers, you have to apply the context, judgment and experience of having marketed in the real world. And you have to do it holistically, not in piecemeal fashion.
When we sit down together to discuss the marketing problems underlying your next research assignment, let’s share some of our collective experience and learn from each other.