In his epic copywriting book Ca$hvertising, Drew Eric Whitman identifies 8 desires that all humans have. He called them the “Life-Force 8”. According to Drew, if you want to improve the efficiency of your marketing, sell more products, attract more customers, and make more money then you need to focus on appealing to these 8 wants or desires.
These desires are biologically programmed into every human being and are common to everyone. It doesn’t matter where someone lives, where they were raised, what colour they are, what religion they are, what language they speak, we all have all one thing in common – we all share these 8 desires.
If you can tap into any one of these wants and are able to fulfill the needs that each desire creates you will sell a lot more products.
The “Life-Force 8”
What exactly are these 8 desires that all humans are biologically programmed with? They are:
1. Survival, enjoyment of life, life extension
2. Enjoyment of food and beverages
3. Freedom from fear, pain, and danger
4. Sexual companionship
5. Comfortable living conditions
6. To be superior, winning, and keeping up with the Joneses
7. Care and protection of loved ones
8. Social approval
Each one of these desires is hardwired into us. They are a fundamental part of what makes us humans tick. You can’t eliminate these desires, they all exist within you to one degree or another.
The extent to which they exist will differ from person to person and they may hold different levels of priority in each person’s life, but they can’t be turned off or eliminated. Think about it. Can you stop your survival extinct? Can you stop being hungry or wanting to enjoy food or drink? Can you realistically give up desiring sexual companionship and loving relationships?
These 8 desires drive us to take action. We want to satisfy them and will do what is necessary to fulfill them. When you can make your advertising appeal to any one of these 8 human desires you will find your results will dramatically start to improve.
This quote from Young and Rubicam sums this up beautifully:
“People buy because of emotion and justify with logic. Force an emotional response by touching on a basic want or need”
Why these desires are so powerful
These desires appeal to the very essence of what makes us human. In fact, they are pretty much the same needs that psychologist Abraham Maslow identified in his famous “Hierarchy of Needs.”
Maslow first developed the hierarchy to help explain the connection between basic human needs and human desires. He believed that as each need or level of the hierarchy was fulfilled, we then move on to fulfilling the next.
As you can see the needs identified by Maslow correspond very closely to the Life-Force 8. These desires correspond to the spectrum of human needs – from the very basic to the more advanced, from the physical (survival, food – Life-Force 1 & 2) to the psychological and social (winning, keeping up with the Joneses, social approval – Life-Force 6 & 7).
These desires are not going anywhere, they are here to stay. If you can tie your product to one of these desires you will inevitably sell more. As a marketer, your job is to tap into these desires with your ads and sales copy. If you can appeal to these desires in your marketing you will get your message seen and heard more loudly and ultimately get your product or service into the hands of more people.
How to incorporate the Life-Force 8 in your marketing
According to Drew Eric Whitman, not only is fulfilling these desires pleasurable, but reading about other people fulfilling them is also just as pleasant to us!
When we read about how someone was able to fulfill one of these desires and can imagine ourselves fulfilling them, it makes us feel good also. The trick to doing this is to create ad copy that causes your prospect to visualise themselves using your product and enjoying the results.
Example – Read the following sales copy:
“By using the ‘Fit in 90 days Plan’ George was able to finally lose the excess weight he had struggled to get rid of for years. Now he is in the best shape of his life, looking good and feeling great!
His confidence has skyrocketed, and he now has the courage to approach beautiful women and ask them out, something he could never have imagined in his wildest dreams! As a result, he has been on 3 dates in the last 2 weeks and has plenty more lined up.
He is buzzing with energy and his friends and colleagues at work have all noticed the positive change in his attitude. His performance at work has excelled, and he is now on track to smash his previous best-ever sales quotas.”
If you’re an out-of-shape guy low on confidence and unable to get a date, reading how George was able to solve those issues and is now enjoying his life and fulfilling his desires makes you feel good.
When you read about George fulfilling these needs (sexual companionship, winning, social approval, self-esteem) you can literally visualise yourself in his position. It also gives you a sense of hope and optimism that the product can work for you also. You can share in the happiness and sense of achievement George is feeling – because you desire that exact feeling also. You can see yourself using the ‘Fit in 90 days plan’ and enjoying the same benefits that George is.
This is the effect that creating effective copy can have on your prospect.
Create ad copy that paints vivid pictures
In order to be effective you have to write copy that appeals to the senses and use visual words that paint a vivid image inside your prospect’s head.
With the right use of words, you can dictate the mental movie that is playing inside the mind of your prospect. You make it easy for them to see themselves using your product and getting the results (the fulfillment of their desire) they so badly want. When your prospects can see themselves successfully using your product to fulfill the desire they have, it creates and fuels the desire for them to have your product.
Anytime you can make your prospect use your product in their imagination, you are moving much closer to making a sale. This is exactly why if you visit a car showroom the salespeople always encourage you to open the car doors and sit in the car. They want you to get inside, smell the leather, hear the engine, feel the steering wheel, and imagine yourself driving it.
This is also why offering a test drive is so effective at closing sales – prospects can actually use the car for real and get a sense of how driving and owning it would make them feel. It engages their senses and imagination.
Anytime you can offer a free trial of your product or service you should do so as it gives prospects a chance to get hands-on with it and increases the likelihood that they’ll buy. But for products that don’t allow for free trials or trying before you buy, you can use your ad copy to create the experience of them using the product in their imagination.
Example:
“Our new milk chocolate is expertly hand-crafted by professional Swiss chocolatiers using a traditional recipe that has been passed down for 3 generations. Its silky smooth taste and rich velvety texture will scintillate your tastebuds. The luxuriously light and delicate chocolate will melt in your mouth. “
The descriptive words in your ad copy probably caused you to imagine the chocolate and what it would taste like. As you read the description of the chocolate you may have even started to salivate as you imagined eating it!
This is how powerful well-crafted copywriting can be. It can literally create vivid images and experiences of your prospects using your product in their imaginations, often without them being consciously aware they are doing so. If they can imagine themselves using your product and fulfilling their desire (whichever of the Life-Force 8 your product targets and fulfills), it massively increases the chances of them buying your product.
When your prospect creates a mental movie of using your product in their head it bridges the gap between first learning about your product and making a purchase decision to buy your product. It “primes” them to buy.
This is why so many great salespeople and marketers incorporate the word “imagine” in their presentations or ad copy. The more you can get your prospect to see themselves using your product or service, the more likely they are to buy.
Summary
Humans have 8 basic desires or needs that we want to fulfill. When these desires are not fulfilled we feel a sense of tension, and this tension motivates us to take the actions necessary to fulfill those desires and alleviate the tension.
The most effective advertising appeals are based on these 8 desires. If you can create a product or service that successfully fulfills any of these desires you will always have a steady stream of customers. There will always be a demand for your product or service as these 8 desires can not be eliminated and people are always striving to fulfill them.
You can appeal to these desires by using creative ad copy that causes your prospect to visually demonstrate the product inside their head. When done right, this builds a strong desire for the fulfillment of the want(s) or results that your product promises to satisfy or deliver, thus fueling demand for your product.
You must incorporate the senses in your sales copy, and use words that stimulate vivid images. When you can incorporate and appeal to your prospect’s sense of tasting, touching, seeing, smelling, and hearing, you will engage more of their brain power and make the image in their head more vivid and real.
When you appeal to any of the Life-Force 8 human desires and create ad copy that allows them to visualise themselves using your product to fulfill that desire, you are bound to have an uplift in your sales and conversions.
Experiment with writing different copy to appeal to the different desires. Try using words that will resonate with your target audience, and always remember to test, test and re-test your campaigns, ads, and copy.
Get the book
If you haven’t already read Ca$hvertising I highly recommend you buy a copy.
It is one of the best and most interesting books on copywriting and ad creation I have read. In addition to the Life-Force 8, Drew Eric Whitman also talks about the 9 secondary human desires, principles of consumer psychology, ad-agency secrets, and easy ways to boost your ad response.
It’s well written (as you would expect from a copywriter!) and is also fun and easy to read. I had a hard time putting the book down. You can read my review of it here.
