Hungry

Guest post by: Seth Godin
Become an Author

Free PDF Download
Caring - By Seth Godin

I had lunch (a big lunch) with a college student last week. An hour later, she got up and announced she was going to get a snack. Apparently, she was hungry.

By any traditional definition of the word, she wasn’t actually hungry. She didn’t need more fuel to power her through an afternoon of sitting around. No, she was bored. Or yearning for a feeling of fullness. Or eager for the fun of making something or the break in the routine that comes from eating it. Most likely, she wanted the psychic satisfaction that she associates with eating well-marketed snacks.

Marketers taught us this. Marketers taught well-fed consumers to want to eat more than we needed, and consumers responded by spending more and getting fat in the process.
Marketers taught to us amplify our wants, since needs aren’t a particularly profitable niche for them. Isn't it interesting that we don't even have a word for these marketing-induced non-needs? No word for sold-hungry or sold-lonely...

Thirsty? Well, Coke doesn’t satisfy thirst nearly as well as water does. What Coke does do is satisfy our need for connection or sugar or brand fun or consumption or Americana or remembering summer days by the creek...

People don’t need Twitter or an SUV or a purse from Coach. We don’t need much of anything, actually, but we want a lot. Truly successful industries align their ‘wants’ with basic needs (like hunger) and consumers (that’s us) cooperate all day long.

Think you could live without the $1800 a year you spend on cell phone service and $1200 a year you spend on cable TV? Of course you can. You did ten years ago. But now, that high-speed, always-on connection to the rest of the world is so associated with your basic need of connection that you can't easily divorce the two.

As discretionary corporate and individual spending contracts, what’s going to get cut first? The obvious wants. The corporate dining room or the big screen TV for Christmas. What’s interesting to watch are the things that we can’t live without, the things we think we need, not want. Those things won’t get cut, yet most of them aren’t needs at all. That’s because the industries that market these items have done a brilliant job of persuading us that they are needs after all.

If you truly believe in what you sell, that's where you need to be, creating wants that become needs. And if you're a consumer (or a business that consumers) it might be time to look at what you've been sold as a need that's actually a want.

Stay Hungry

You Have To Be Hungry - Part I of III

All You Can Eat

What Separates Successful People From Unsuccessful People?

Change yourself first, before you try changing others

Ask the Right Questions to Qualify Your Business Niche

Even In Small Bites, Spending Is Hard To Swallow

Effective Phone Techniques

5 Steps to a Successful Continuity Program

You Have To Be Hungry - Part II of III

Vending Machines Modernize

7 Key Components of an Instantly Successful Small Business

Three Common Recruiting Mistakes to Avoid

Without Market Research You Could Find Yourself Fishing In An Empty Pond

Profit Powered by Christmas

The "C-H-I-N-A" formula for selling services or products to China

Appreciate Your Adversaries, IX

The Forgotten Art of Conversation

Lesson #1: Think Like An Athlete

Mailing List for Affiliate Marketers

Home > Entrepreneur-Advice > Seth Godin > Hungry > Google +

Free PDF Download
Caring - By Seth Godin

About the Author: Seth Godin

RSS for Seth's articles - Visit Seth's website
Seth Godin is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change. Godin is author of six books that have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, change and work. Permission Marketing was an Amazon.com Top 100 bestseller for a year, a Fortune Best Business Book and it spent four months on the Business Week bestseller list. It also appeared on the New York Times business book bestseller list.
Click here to visit Seth's website.

$Seth\'s Blog$
More from Seth Godin
The thing about coupons
The confusion
The spirit of the game
When in doubt disaggregate
Responsibility

Share this article. Fund someone's dream.

Share this post and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Hungry

Related Articles

Related Forum Posts

Share this article. Fund someone's dream.


Name:
Email: