Advertising: Covering Humans Needs.

Since childhood, we are influenced by the environment in which we grow up; everything from the weather to daily actions makes us develop unique needs for objects. Those needs change from person to person and from population to population. The things that you need are presented by the advertising industry in incredible and repetitive ways, which eventually make you develop a connection with the product so you probably will buy it even if it doesn't meet your principal needs.

Since we are born, humans develop a need for other persons; because we can't feed ourselves when we are born we can't survive without somebody to care about us, which makes us dependent to someone. When we grow up, our dependence changes from a person to objects; we start to figure out that our life can easier and better with certain tools that can help us in our daily life. This fact is supported by many psychological investigations, such as "Maslow's hierarchy of needs" based on observations of human nature and curiosity, Maslow states "With their physical needs relatively satisfied, the individuals safety needs take over and dominate their behavior... these safety needs manifest themselves in such things as a preference for job security, grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, savings accounts and insurance policies".

Those needs for objects and benefits are the targets of the advertising companies. "Because you have to travel a lot, I can offer you a car. Because you don't have enough time to cook, I can offer you fast food. Because is very cold outside, I can offer you warm clothes", and goes on. All those needs changes within countries and zones on earth. In northern cities, there are ads for warm clothes, umbrellas and so on. But in tropical part the ads are for swimsuits, sport cloth, lighter food and so forth, so the environment is an important factor to be considered in this industry, which defines who the target of the ads are.

Once the ads are designed for certain people, they are showed over and over, in order for the public to start thinking about the product, looking at it and imagine one with it. Everything is planed specifically from the music to the color in order to connect the product with these arrangements. Symbols are a common strategy; advertisements often pair the product with a symbol, a word, or both and begin to show it everywhere, in cans, bottles, bus stops, walls, flayers, food containers, TV, radio, and so forth. The strategy is to teach a conditioned response (think about the product) to a subject by pairing a unconditioned stimulus (the need for the object) with a neutral stimulus (the symbols and the words), so when you see the symbols, you will think about the product, and probably buy it.

The environment in which we grow up makes us need certain objects, food, clothes etc. This needs change constantly and the advertising industry notice that, so they target those needs and shoot you with images, words and even sounds in order for you to think about the product every time you see or hear them. In conclusion, once the product is in your mind, is very probable that you will buy it. In fact an investigation shows that sales on an advertised product increase 11% once they began to do the publicity. However, advertise make some needs more important than others. People may satisfy a need that may not be one of their ones. They may buy things that they regret later, eat when they're not hungry, or perform other useless actions. This is the result of a well-made advertisement.

Fernando Blohm