Selling to the sated
Although companies are manufacturing more new products than ever before, they are finding it increasingly difficult to repeat the success of the blockbuster products of the past. People in developed countries now seem to have almost all the basic consumer goods they need. So today`s innovations are either just filling the few small niches that remain, or replacing obsolete products with updates and variations of the same thing. In a sense, the behavioral psychologist Abraham Maslow predicted this obsolescence when he drew up his theory of human motivation. He said people`s needs fell into a hierarchy, with basic needs such as food, warmth and shelter at the bottom, more complex emotional needs in the middle, and “self-actualization” at the top. As each need was satisfied, people progressed upwards to the next.
Most of the big names – Procter&Gamble, Colgate, H.J. Heinz, Kellogg, Coca-Cola – had been satisfying people`s basic needs since the late 19th century. Rapidly rising prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s led companies to compete for people`s spending by launching a deluge of “new, quality enhanced” products. Now it is hard to find a basic consumer need that has not been satisfied. Goods at this level have become little more than commodities and people`s interest in brands has moved to higher levels.
Now, our feelings of success, fulfillment and well-being come from a much more complex web of things, such as buying the right clothes, wearing the right label and having the right mobile phone. After dedicating themselves for more than a century to the fulfillment of basic needs, the big consumer goods companies are struggling to adjust to this shift in priorities. Instead of shopping for basic food ingredients and taking them home to make meals, people now pay others to do the work for them – buying ready-prepared meals from supermarkets, or having their food cooked for them by takeaway outlets or restaurants. Similarly, many people feel they have more important things to do than spend time on household chores and are always on the alert for new brands to alleviate the burden. People haven`t lost their insatiable desire for famous brands. It`s just that the famous brands of today are not simple products, they are complicated mixtures of product, service and entertainment. So a whole new generation of non-product-based brands is emerging.
Ex. 2. Write all possible questions to the text (10).
Ex. 3. Find the equivalents!
1) знаменитые бренды
2) развитые страны
3) готовить еду
4) чувство успеха
5) более важные вещи
6) смесь продуктов, услуг и развлечений
7) в конце 19 века
8) сложно найти
9) эмоциональные потребности
10) в верху