because I want to.

I wasn't quite certain if it was mid-life crisis, a bad attitude, or PMS. But I spent the last couple of months with a gnawing irritation and cynicism about Marketing, a rather unfortunate development considering my role as a marketing consultant. Creeping into my psyche was a feeling that marketing had reached new levels of perversion, manipulating the unsuspecting minds of a population that has been through quite enough, thank you. I couldn't watch a commercial without visualizing the behind-the-glass banter of the focus groups. I started to see innocent consumers as the mice that we marketers experiment with, seeing which cheese would compel the mouse of interest to find its way through the maze. And frankly, I was feeling a little dirty about it all.

Typically when I am bothered by something, I just need some time to identify exactly what is causing the heartburn. If I can articulate it, even if the situation itself has not changed, I feel differently toward it. So I let the feeling simmer a while until its source decides to willingly emerge. The revelation of root cause has historically come at the oddest moments, and this one was no different. I had to run at night, in a downpour, with a barefoot guy, in order to understand my newly loathsome view of Marketing.

Enter Chris McDougall. He wrote a book called Born to Run, which I admittedly still haven't read. But we discussed his theory at length, one he developed while living with a primitive tribe in Mexico, on a quest to better understand runner injuries. In a nutshell, he believes that humans are born and built to run. That running was, in early times, not only a survival imperative (hunting), it was a source of freedom and enjoyment (if you watch children at play you will understand). At some point in our "evolution" (sarcastic quotations) we manufactured and perpetuated a "proper running form" (which is actually improper), built a cottage-industry of experts, generated an unimaginable volume of supposedly skill-enhancing products, and a mentality that distance running is physiologically selective and inherently causes suffering. If you set aside all of these man-made (and dare I say Capitalist) beliefs, you realize that running is non-discriminating, quite liberating, that we naturally know how to do it, and that the traditional shoe technology may be doing more biomechanical harm than good.

So where is the ah-ha moment, you ask.

Well, being a person who likes to be properly equipped for my sporting hobbies, and after hearing Chris start a thousand sentences with "You don't really need...", I looked down at my gear and realized that I had spent a fair amount of money on things that I had Wanted, but was able to justify those purchases as Need. To be clear, I didn't regret the purchases. I was just feeling gullible and embarrassed by the fact that Marketing had successfully coached me on what to tell myself.

This means two things: 1) that at some point in our recent past, it became socially wrong to "Want". When was the last time you said "I want..." without feeling a twinge of guilt? And 2) that marketers have realized a purchase is much more likely if you can convince someone that they Need it instead. That Wanting is emotional and Needing is rational. That want-driven, emotional expenditures are irresponsible, so any need-based, rational arguments should be pulled to the forefront of communication.

This was indeed the hidden source of my irritation, because it feels deliberate and devious. Knowing that consumers of all socio-economic strata are reprioritizing expenditures, paring back on or foregoing purchases, many more Marketers are taking Want products and repositioning them as Need products. (Froot Loops will boost your immunity and help protect you against N1H1?) Don't even get me started on the fear marketing. That is another blog entry entirely.

So I say, why not be honest and call it what it is? What is so fundamentally wrong with Wanting?

My first instinct is to suggest that Want in the US culture is strongly associated with over-indulgence. "I really want ice cream right now" conjures the image of a couch, and a large spoon scraping the sides of an already-devoured quart. "I want a nice house" takes one mentally to McMansion-like images. "I want larger breasts"...well, you get the picture. My guess is that Wanting, in some other cultures, may be more naturally related to simple pleasures and modest indulgences. Not at all shameful.

In consideration of this Want vs Need dilemma, it occurred to me also that, in my personal relationships, I have always tried to achieve Want over Need. To me, Want in a relationship is healthier than Need. "I want to be with him" as opposed to "I need to be with him" (and visa versa, to be wanted is perhaps a greater compliment). I equate Want in this context with Choice, and Need to be a tragic absence thereof.

So my challenge as a marketer (yes, I stopped looking at massage therapy schools and careers at Barnes & Noble)...as a Marketer, the task is twofold:

1) I feel newly obligated to examine the truth of the product and of the brand in this context, and to leverage the beautiful honesty of the purpose and role they play in the consumer's life.

2) I want to closely observe this notion of Want in the US culture and especially how it evolves through economic change. I believe there is nothing wrong with wanting, it's all about the images it conjures.

My challenge on a personal level is to live without any of the products that pissed me off with their advertising.