Sex, Death and Consumer Products

So this then is what it all comes down to: sex and death. The consumer products that we buy are really about just two things: trying to avoid dying and being attractive enough to the opposite sex to form a liaison. From food and medicine -- that living part -- to personal care and cosmetics -- that attractive part, almost all of our consumable activities line up behind those poles of life.

Think of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Do you see any fat Egyptians on those walls? Those drawings and the attendant stories were the Vogue magazine of the Nile cognoscenti.

Two other quick points. Woody Allen in his eponymous movie calls these poles: Love and Death. A friend of mine, Jim Carpenter, characterized the attraction, as it pertains to women, as seeking security. Men, of course, are more focused on just sex. So maybe I am being crass and Darwinian by focusing on procreation and surely we are better than that and seek more out of life.

This is still the challenge for marketers. They need to truly make an effort to understand their consumers, to identify and mine the insights of their motivations, going under their skin and into their brains, and to develop products and positionings that meet consumer needs.

I know this sounds so basic. It is the mantra breathed in many CPG companies. Yet other businesses like banks, insurance companies, airlines, automotive companies even industrial manufacturers, do not well understand this point. They are struggling to find their way in and even their buy-in. And some CPG companies themselves have a long way to go to understand people's coping habits, buying drivers and decision-making.