Motigraphics: The Analysis and Measurement of Human Motivation in Marketing

Citation

Dupree, J. (2001), "Motigraphics: The Analysis and Measurement of Human Motivation in Marketing", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 179-189. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2001.18.2.179.4

Motigraphics has it all; plot points, good guys (Maddock and crew), bad guys (all other psychologists led by Maslow), conflict, resolution, opinion, anecdotal evidence, stories, and research out the kazoo. Perhaps the key to Motigraphics is best summed up in:

There are many reasons people can’t (or won’t) tell … the real reason why they do what they do … the most important … is … they don’t know themselves (p. 212).

For Maddock, human motivation is primarily unconscious and emotional. If marketers learn to identify consumers’ subliminal cues and tap into the emotional reasons for buying, they will experience greater success. Remember this, read the Introduction and Chapters 1, 3, 5, 7, 15 and 16, and you have got the book. From the Introduction to the Appendix, the author argues against traditional market research methodologies – demographics, psychographics, and lifestyle – by implication and direct statement, offering Motigraphics as the salvation of market research.

While I suggest only reading six of the book’s 18 chapters, it is not because the other 12 are without value; it is because of the somewhat repetitive style, the intricate detail, and observational and anecdotal research stories used to elaborate and defend his theories. It is a dense book, but not in the sense of being obtuse or full of jargon. Rather, from the opening story of bear behavior in the national parks (an interesting opening since the author roundly criticizes behavioral psychologists for their dependence on animal behavior studies) to the application of Motigraphics in the Susan Smith case (the mother who drowned her two children in her car), there is one engaging story after the other. You will have difficulty not reading it all.

Richard Maddock wants to explain and document the superiority of Motigraphics to other forms of applied psychology for marketing. However, the book lacks a clear application focus. Many of the works cited, the studies reviewed, and illustrations are from fields other than business. At times I felt as if I were reading a psychology textbook; other times an exposé on the intellectual vacuum of modern psychology and the deification of Freud and Battie. The theory of Motigraphics and its practice is quite interesting but the author lacks a solid, thorough, and consistent application of it to marketing.

Usually one passes over the introduction with its usual thank yous and glowing endorsement by some authority or celebrity. In this case the author quickly and thoroughly outlines his purpose and strategy for the book. You must read the introduction. If you pass it by, you may have to come back to it later to understand the development of the book.

Part I launches the war against traditional psychology and lays the foundation for Motigraphics. Maddock argues in Chapter 1 that demographics and psychographics don’t reveal the why of consumer behavior. They miss human motivation because they neglect emotion and the power of subliminal cues to reveal it. In Chapter 2, after savaging traditional psychology for not providing direction to marketers in understanding consumer motivation, Maddock eviscerates Maslow. He then takes on psychology as a science – a flawed model – and reduces cognitive psychology to modified behaviorism.

Chapters 3‐7 lay the foundation for Motigraphics. Chapter 3 is central as it explains the concept and use of subliminal cues. Maddock tells us their three sources and introduces the part “plot points” play in the development of subliminal cues as well as what they aren’t, but he leaves their identification a bit cloudy. While he describes subliminal cues conceptually and offers lists of them, it is a little difficult for the reader to ferret them out on his/her own using the book’s descriptions. Maddock’s work draws heavily from right brain/left brain research, a point he makes clear in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5 he argues that consumer resistance is a function of the emotional nature of decision making. “The more emotional a decision … the more rationalizations they (consumers) generate,” and the higher their consumer resistance. The best way to manage this resistance is to work with it. This is probably one of the most helpful and applicable chapters of the entire book. His criticism of advertising in Chapter 6, with its overemphasis on absurdities to create memorability and its loss of connection to the product, is right on the money. It is the absurdity that both provides the consumer with something he/she can “personalize” – identify with – and that ties the consumer back to the product. Maddock well makes the point that too often award‐winning advertisements don’t move product. In too many cases the most creative (absurd) ads using the latest technology are praised by the industry but do little for the client. Drawing from screenwriting, Maddock introduces the concept of plot points and paradigms and their effect on consumer behavior (Chapter 7). Plot points are those times, often early in childhood, when events give the individual his/her subliminal cues to life. Their worldview is their paradigm, the framework by which they interpret reality (and advertising). Maddock’s key to motivating consumer behavior is tying into the correct consumer cues and using the most appropriate paradigm.

Part II, Human Motivation, reads like a psychology textbook in its reference to research, studies, and detailed explanations of the neurological evidence for various motives. Chapter 8 introduces the section, detailing the procedure, outlining its methodology, and briefly introducing each of the motives. If you enjoy methodology, read it. However, calling this chapter one of methodology is somewhat misleading because it isn’t until Chapter 15 that the methodology is actually laid out. Why do we get method at the end of the book and its application in the middle? Read the introduction and all becomes clear. But you must review the last few pages of Chapter 8, pages 113‐19, or you will not understand the next five chapters. Each motive, sub‐element of each motive, and their interrelations are introduced here. Then, if you are pressed for time, each motive can be grasped by reading the first two or three pages of the respective chapter.

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  Orientation – how we pay attention to people, places, time, and circumstances (Chapter 9);

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  Survival – spiritual, physical, territorial, sexual (Chapter 10);

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  Adaptation – the desire to be like everyone else, the strongest of motives which comes from childhood (Chapter 11);

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  Expectation (resolution) – the desire for closure and completion, the inability to live with ambiguity (Chapter 12); and finally

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  Play – doing something simply for enjoyment, a foundational motive that can be translated into a higher‐level motive (Chapter 13).

The remainder of each chapter offers neurological, anecdotal, and observational/story bases for each motive. One difficulty for this reviewer is that while Maddock makes frequent references to studies that he has conducted, he often fails to adequately identify the industry or circumstances of the study so that the reader can judge its applicability to his/her situation. Chapter 9’s introduction of the use of the orientation motive in the gaming industry and references to the gaming industry in later chapters will provide the classroom instructor or corporate trainer with hours of material of ethical consideration. (To be clear, Maddock is only reporting, he is not commenting on the ethicality of what is done.) If you gamble you will find it fascinating. If you do not, or you do not believe marketers should use their knowledge of human behavior to manipulate the weaker side of human nature, be prepared to be fascinated in a horrifying way at an example of consumer behavior research used to exploit human weakness.

It is in the third section of the book, “The basic building blocks of human behavior”, where Maddock most clearly supports his bias to qualitative research: “An effective quantitative scoring system will evolve from a valid qualitative system” (Chapter 14). Chapters 15 and 16 detail Motigraphics methodology and dependency on right/left brain research. Chapter 15 provides a thorough explanation of the training of interviewers and the four cornerstones of the right‐brain interview: visualization, relaxation, repetition, and direction, as well as examples of interviews. Maddock argues that all consumer motivation comes from his building blocks, reviewed in Chapter 1 and depicted in Figure 1.1. But in his explanation of training, it seems that interviewers are simply being preconditioned to see a given “paradigm” rather how to discover the paradigm that emerges from subjects’ statements. Again, the conceptual nature of his framework of subliminal cues makes it hard to see a consistent way to hear and categorize them when interviewing. Also, his sample size is questionable for the generalizations he makes. To be fair, he offers a reasonable argument for why he can work with a relatively small sample. But he fails to adequately support the generalization of his data to a general consumer population. In effect, he still has the basic drawback of all qualitative research. He tries to work around this in Chapter 16, which is the clearest and most useful application of Motigraphics to marketing. However, it is interesting to note, that even though Maddock cautions us about their use, he eventually is “forced” by his clients to use the same Likert‐scale questionnaires he roundly criticized earlier, to expand the sample size in the studies.

The final portion of the book, “Applications to advertising and marketing”, loses focus and provides little that is applicable to either. While I may seem critical of Maddock I am not. My criticism is directed at his editor who allowed him to wander off point, and leave most of the application of this theory to a concluding chapter and an appendix, written as if they were afterthoughts. He begins Chapter 17 by criticizing consultants. What does this have to do with application? He briefly wanders through gaming and health care, giving each a couple of pages, and then various elements of marketing – new products, existing products, packaging, etc., offering one to three paragraphs on each. Chapter 18 is a general discussion of human motivation, recapping and defending his position, with little, if any, useful application. The appendix applies Motigraphics to law enforcement, leadership and management, children’s education, etc. How does this relate to the purpose of the book, the application of Motigraphics to consumer behavior?

As a reader I sometimes wondered if Dr Maddock was scared by Maslow as a child or mistreated by a behavioral psychologist. He uses every opportunity to beat Maslow and his theories over and over and over again. Except for writers of sadly out‐of‐date textbooks, who does not recognize the flaws and lack of empirical support for Maslow’s theories? Why beat this straw man so thoroughly? In fact, I find his total rejection of the field of psychology a bit suspect. It is interesting that Maddock uses a very similar hierarchy to Maslow for his own model. He ignores the work of Alderfer in his adaptation of Maslow’s theories and the empirical evidence supporting Alderfer’s work. I find it hard to accept that there are no redeeming or usable virtues from either of these fields for marketers, except of course for Maddock’s Motigraphics. It seems that Maddock offers a different set of motives or perhaps a different level of motivation to examine, a helpful and stimulating consideration for marketers, but not necessarily a better one. He does not really give us a reason for accepting his categorization or stopping at his level of motivation. However, if the reader has some knowledge of psychological theory and marketing research techniques, he/she can sort through Maddock’s mix of assertion and research, his eloquent passionate arguments, and consistent ravaging of these fields and draw new and worthwhile ideas out of his book. I would recommend this book as an intellectual stimulator to the experienced marketer or business professional who is looking for new ideas.