Activating Consumer Goals

Everyday, we play multiple roles; we can be a parent, a child, a spouse, a sibling, a co-worker and a friend; all at the same time. With every different role, we would have different goals.

A father would like to get a family car for the kids but as a successful businessman, he would also want to get a fancier car to show off his status. If he could only choose one car, the “activated” role takes over but if he could afford it, he would get both.

Why Are Goals Important?

All of us have many goals to fulfill at any one time. And these goals lead to behavior. Goals can be to finish up a report, run an errand and to buy a new camera.

Some are more urgent than others and what marketers need to do is to make their product the way to fulfilling consumer goals, preferably urgent ones.

Activate Relevant Goals

What can marketers do with this information? Activate the right consumer goals of course! Remind them of the specific role they play that would make them need your product and put it as priority.

For example, BlackBerry should remind its audience a specific role they play, a role they can play better at with a BlackBerry. On its Singapore website, it had a small section called “school on BlackBerry” that said,

How I wished they promoted more on that. University students play the role of young twenty year olds looking for fun and friends. They also play a role of future successful working adults. Each role has a different goal, and each goal has a different weight. Marketers have the power to change those weights.

Which should blackberry focus on? It is obvious that the students are going to play and build on the latter role for a longer time than the former. Hence, remind them that they would soon step into the working world and BlackBerry can help them get ahead. Activate the goal of getting a head start in their career. Make this goal more important than other goals in consumers’ minds.

They did rather well in the ad below for the already working adults.