There are three critical steps in motivating someone to buy a product, vote for a candidate, or believe in an idea:

1) Grab Their Attention

You can't persuade someone who isn't paying attention.

2) Promise them a benefit

This is the payoff. If you've created a worry, promise them a solution. If you've suggested an action, show them the result.

3) Find or create a problem

Inertia is a great enemy to motivation. If you are asking people to change (products, ideas), they need a reason. If you are asking them to take an action (whether make a purchase or embrace a belief), they need a reason. Focusing on a problem gives them the motivation to act.

3) Find or create a problem

There are four basic types of needs:

1) Physical needs

2) Safety needs

3) Belongingness and Love

4) Self-Esteem

This famous ad campaign for Wisk detergent was designed to make women feel insecure about their abilities as a wife. People would think less of them because there was a dirt ring around their husband's collar.

But think logically about this. First, how many people will be pulling a man's collar open to look inside? Second, just whose fault is it that the husband doesn't bathe enough to keep his neck clean?

An advertiser invented a need, then provided a product to meet that need. The campaign touched on three of the four types of needs: physical - clothing; belongingness and love - a clean shirt means a happy husband; self-esteem - the shame of a husband with ring around the collar is just too much to bear.

"Wisk blots out stain of 'Ring Around the Collar.'"

This "Advertising Age" review compares the 1998 Wisk campaign with its infamous predecessor.

1) Physical Needs

Food, drink, shelter, sex

The more primal the need, the more powerful the motivation.

In an age of anorexic models and weight obsession, this ad is for people who like to eat. A lot.

The ad for this beverage promises to make you forget what your sex partner looks like. Or even what gender they are.

I'm not sure if the intended audience for this beverage is the person who wants to forget, or the person who wants you to forget.

This R rated ad uses humor and the hint of oral sex to sell ice cream.

Using sex to sell is not a new technique. This beer ad, with the daring bare right shoulder, is from 1897. Click for larger image ©Marco Fine Arts

Over the years, the appeal to sex has lost some of its subtilty. Click for larger image

The best ads combine several needs. This particular ad uses sexual imagery to overcome our aversion to cholesterol. Click for larger image

2) Safety Needs

Keeping you and the family safe.

Advertisers like to create strong emotional responses in people. The stronger the emotion, the less "critical" the target will be about the claims of the product.

Fear can be a powerful motivator. This public service ad combines sex and fear to create a memorable message.

This ad, combining physical needs and safety was considered too powerful by the client. It was withdrawn, according to the ad agency, because "it was a little off the strategy they're pursuing". The as was memorable, but the surface meaning was ambiguous, leading to confusion over the intended meaning.

Currenlty, the NRA is spending millions of dollars on ads designed to make you afraid. They then present the solution to your fear - more guns.

3) Belongingness and Love

Everyone wants to belong. Everyone wants to love and be loved.

So buy this product and someone one will love you!

This 1950's Listerine ad shows the heartbreak of bad breath. And that love is only a swish away!

A Coke, some mistletoe, an innocent kiss. A positioning ad with simple surface and intended meanings. Or is there a more sinister ideological meaning teaching us that love has a price and women are only interested in material things?

Many advertising slogans speak to the longing for love and companionship:

"Weekends Were Made for Michelob"

"Nothing spells lovin' like something from the oven/ and Pillsbury spells it best."

4) Self-Esteem

This is a complex motivation, since it can be applied both positively and negatively. Ads promoting positive self-esteem make you feel good about yourself (and the product). Ads generating negative self-esteem make you feel bad about yourself until you buy the product.

The Wisk ad, above, is a good example creating an atmosphere of negative self-esteem which can only be countered by buying the product.

This type of conditioned response to marketing is why some critics refer to excess consumption as an addiction. Advertising generates negative self-esteem which forces us to consume products to have a positive self-esteem. The consumption is not related to our needs or even the uses of the product. Consumption becomes a psychological response to an emotional trigger.

As the Nike ad, below, demonstrates, the difference in positive and negative self-esteem can be in the eye of the beholder.

This ad has been praised for its intended meaning of drawing attention to the issue of unequal rights in men's and women's sports. It has been attacked for an ideological interpretation implying that women must ask for permission to play sports.

Click here to read "Madison Avenue versus The Feminine Mystique: How the Advertising Industry Responded to the Onset of the Modern Women's Movement."

This paper takes a broad look at Madison Avenue's approaches to women during and immediately after the feminanist movement.

The "Charles Atlas" ad on the right appeared in comic books for two decades and helped define the "ideal male" for a generation.

As the commercial below shows, my generation thought the ideal riff was a better path to success.

For three generations of girls, that ideal has been Barbie.

The Barbie commercial, below, help set the standards of womanhood.

The commercial below, however, suggests a new role model for girls. Is it better than Barbie?