Did you know that food products act as life’s confirmers, regulators and equilibrators, mood catalysts, instant love, deeper nourishment, celebrations of life, preventive medicine, elemental comforters, natural connectors, guarantors of daily survival, outlets for aggression, displays of taste, test fields, pleasurable encounters, performance incarnators, tokens of beneficence? Understand the deep motives underpinning our buying behaviour in relation to food and build food brands and narratives that engage people at a profoundly human level.

1. (RE)DEFINING FOOD BRANDS
THROUGH HUMAN FUNDAMENTALS

2. Hi! My name is Constantinos
Pantidos and I believe that
companies could improve
people’s lives even more
effectively if they had
deeper human insight.

3. For consumer satisfaction
to be as complete as
possible, we must take
care not only of the needs
consumers understand
and are able to evaluate
but also and especially
the ones they are not
consciously aware of

4. While 95% of our purchase
decision making takes place in our
unconscious, we tend to spend a
disproportionally high time on
product characteristics and price
and promotions because they are
easier to grasp

5. Instead, this presentation
delves into the
unconscious mind of the
consumer, the 95% that
really matters, and
makes it possible for
marketers to build
irresistible brands

6. Biological Value Brain &
Body
Systems
Cognitive
Operations
Psychological
States
Human
Morality
Behaviour
Rewards
Engagement
The
pathways
of human
behaviour
While the models for shaping
brand strategy used by most
multinationals today ignore
the contribution of modern
sciences such as
neurobiology and cognitive
science, BRAND AVIATORS™
use a comprehensive model
having an evolutionary
foundation and a
multidisciplinary approach
enabling marketers to build
consumer propositions that
are impossible to resist

7. Our psyche consists of a code

8. We are an
ordered pattern
of fundamental
motives capable
of generating life

9. Having captured our
fundamental human
motives, the irreducible parts
of our nature, all the way
from their biological values,
to the inherent concepts they
imbue into our everyday life,
this model traces emotions
from their roots, and creates
concepts that bear the
freshness of the source.
CONNECT
CONTROL
The wheel of motives™
GROW
CARE
BALANCE
DESIRE
FEEL
SAFE
SEEK
PLAY
CREATE
DEFY
TRANSFORM
TM

10. Motive Main biological
advantages /
survival value
Possible
neurosystems
involved
Examples of
cognitive
operations
Main psychological
states
Main sociocultural
manifestations and
reinforcers
Feel safe Detection of threats,
Dissipation of fears,
Endurance via
rewards,
Creation of
optimism that
facilitates success
Reward systems
(opioid
neurosystems that
induce a sensation of
pleasure and
suppress pain), Fear
dampening systems,
Defensive system
Retrospection,
Reminiscence,
Comfort and
enjoyment,
Believing,
Increasing positive
emotions,
Constancy, Coping,
Resolution of
emotional conflict,
Incognisance,
Anthropomorphism
Stability,
Regression,
Renewal, Nostalgia,
Daydreaming,
Comfort, Hope,
Happiness, Satiety,
Plenitude, Joy, Bliss,
Instant gratification,
Reward,
Perfectionism
Postponement,
Shame, Guilt,
Humbleness, Self-
sacrifice, Narcissism
Belief systems such
as religion, Morality,
Ethics, Mores,
Folkway, Tradition,
Authenticity
Example: the pathways of our motive to feel
safe.

11. Beneath all the
phantasmagoria of
global marketing
communication, lies
order and rhythm,
the source code of
our human behaviour

12. * A book will shortly be published, extensively
analysing the motives underpinning 20 categories
of everyday consumer goods and our fundamental
human motives. It puts forward the most integrated
platform for engaging people to date.
The motives driving food brand
preference are presented in a
summarised form in order of
increasing relative importance in
line with their power to influence
our buying decisions *

13. EXPRESSION: On an initial layer of
motivation, food offers a very
quick way of explaining who we
are, where we come from, what
we like. We are what we eat not
only in a biological sense but also
in a symbolic one.

14. EXPLORATION: More
significantly, humans
are omnivores who
must continually test
new foods. Variety
opposes satiety.

15. ORDER: Food’s core role in life
and the ritual surrounding
meals, structuring our day,
give us a sense that we
control our environment.
Cooked food makes us
civilized. The very refinement
of the matter being consumed,
makes us feel that raw human
nature is governed.

16. Food plays a central
role in the formation
of the symbolic
structure of society.
Food is a symbol of
status, a prime means
of self-gratification
and a way of
controlling others

17. DESTRUCTION: Yet another
motive for why we buy food
products rests in their capacity
to resonate with our fear of
hunger - our most primal fear.
Unless we eat we die. Unless
we eat every few hours, we
start to view things around us
as distorted. Food by its nature
requires its own destruction.
Life comes through the death
of animals and plants, which
other animals eat.

18. Eating is the most direct way
to incorporate a substance.
It is an aggressive action
against the food which is
attacked and consumed.
Biting and chewing are
outlets for aggressiveness.

19. TRANSUBSTANTIATION:
Going into deeper
motivation, embodying the
capacity of food to act as a
mood catalyst, some of the
most successful brand
narratives promise to
influence our physical and
psychological states.

20. In substance, food is
chemical conversion, a
direct descendent of
alchemy. At every meal,
food transforms us into
relaxed and satiated
beings.

21. BALANCE: Proceeding into deep
motivation, eating is the most
frequent union with our own
body. Food helps us achieve an
equilibrated relationship with
our body. Our attitude towards
food influences our short term
and long term health. A sane
attitude towards food can form
the basis for good living and a
balanced mental state.

22. COMPANIONSHIP: Food puts us
back in touch with the source of
life-force, creating a universal
fellowship.

23. There is no greater fusion of the individual and the
world than in the moment when we sit at the table
to eat. We inherently dislike eating alone. But
even when we do, food can create a feeling of
connectedness. Experiencing a branded product
shared by millions the imagined group is joined.

24. PLAYFULNESS: On an even more
profound layer of motivation,
some of the most successful brands
help us experience food as a daily
celebration of life. Food nourishes
the spark of life within the body.
Food is life, each time we eat we
affirm life. Eating helps us focus on
the moment. It is a momentary
diversion, a small vacation from
the rest of our actions.

25. PLEASURE: Moving closer to the
heart of the matter, incorporating
the profound relationship of food
with pleasure some food brands
make us experience some of the
most erotic narratives among all
consumer goods. Food and sex are
the two major incentives nature
offers us as rewarding pleasures
for living. Between the two, food
comes first.

26. Food rarely succeeds in the
marketplace unless it is tasty,
despite all the other benefits
that it may have. On a deep
level, sexual hunger and
physical hunger have always
been allies. Food itself can be
an indication of a deeper
yearning.

27. GROWTH: On yet another
layer of motivation,
incarnating in their
narratives the key function
of food, some of the most
successful brands in the food
industry promise us strength
and development.

28. That we call nutritional value
“energy”, is not accidental.
Food is energy in its potential
state, enclosed in solid matter.
Food is strong and substantial,
it is performance. Its basic
function is to increase the life of
the individual. Food helps us
grow.

29. CARE: On a yet more profound
layer of motivation, food has
always been a token of the
beneficence of the world.

30. Food’s function is to preserve the
life of the individual. All eating is
archetypically linked with the
early memory of food and love
as a unified experience. We are
completely nourished not by the
food itself but by the emotions
and love that accompanies it.
Feeding each other and allowing
ourselves to be fed are amongst
the most primal of human
impulses.

31. COMFORT: On the innermost
layer of human motivation,
food acts as the most elemental
and primitive of all comforters.
Indefinable well-being, fullness
and wholesomeness are
derived from our instinctive
understanding of rejuvenating
life.

32. As a good meal soothes the
soul and regenerates the
body, archetypically, in our
mind food equals comfort,
familiarity, continuity and
predictability.

33. From a meal’s abundance,
flows a benevolence. For
food to be available in
abundance, to last, to not
be scarce, is what we have
always longed for.

34. We are born hungry. The
first thing we do when we
are born is to reach
instinctively for the breast
and eat. We yearn for
wholesome food to feel full.
Our survival depends on
reaching out and suckling.

35. In satisfying our
original hunger
we satisfy our
need for security

36. Leading brands
express the
fundamental
human motives
driving their
category *
* In some cases, the
same brand can be
manifested in
different ways in
different countries

37. Having used the same
approach in a consequent
manner, I have traced the
motives underpinning
buying behaviour in over
seventy global categories of
goods and services all the
way back to their biological
values, in turn developing
the most integrated model
for engaging people today
CONNECT
CONTROL
The wheel of motives™
GROW
CARE
BALANCE
DESIRE
FEEL
SAFE
SEEK
PLAY
CREATE
DEFY
TRANSFORM
TM

38. Deep category
understanding is just the first
step in creating engaging
narratives. To build a
proposition that is both
authentic and deeply
engaging, the brand must
germinate the bare motives
that drive the category in a
unique and profoundly
human way.

39. CONNECT
CONTROL
The wheel of motives™
GROW
CARE
BALANCE
DESIRE
FEEL
SAFE
SEEK
PLAY
CREATE
DEFY
TRANSFORM
TM
The Wheel Of Motives™ can
help us activate the unique
codes of a brand, those that
engage people at a
profound human level
based on a three-phase
methodology *
* For the complete theory about
how the fundamental human
motives work please contact the
author or wait until the
publishing of the book

40. Phase 1: Psychographic
landscaping
• Mapping the meaning people
derive from the category
• Deconstructing the meaning
systems of the brands in the
category
• Tracing meaning-saturated
areas and fundamental
motives which are catered for
less effectively

41. Phase 2: Brand (re)definition
• Locating the core of the brand
(based on the fundamental
motive(s) it activates)
• Mobilising the core to give a
unique answer to what
consumers have always
wanted from the category

42. Phase 3: The unique
language of the brand
• Imprinting brand strategy
into our fundamental human
motives, the roots of human
communication
• Translating brand strategy
into Intrinsically Engaging
Narratives™ - tangible and
ownable experiences based
on the profound code

43. To capture the deep
resonances that make
a brand successful,
and its consonances
with the category, a
profound knowledge
of the rich hierarchies
of inherent concepts
of our mind, and their
underground
connections, is
required.

44. In tracing the pathways our mind
uses to create reality and by
activating the very forces of life,
The Wheel Of Motives™ offers
considerable advantages over the
brand strategy models currently
being used by multinational
companies. Brands and concepts
developed through The Wheel Of
Motives™ are heartfelt, and
profound.

45. Above all, by founding
brand strategy on our
fundamental human motives
the brand becomes deeply
humanistic in that it offers
holistic, universal
experiences that no longer
simply satisfy some
individual needs but the
needs of the species

46. BRAND AVIATORS™ are trusted by some of the world’s
leading companies:

47. (Re)define your brand through the
human fundamentals if you seek
to:
• Deeply engage people locally
and across cultures
• Develop genuine concepts that
work year after year after year
• Align all brand communications
under one master idea
• Increase the ROI of all your
brand’s activities

48. My mission is to help clients
around the world build brands
that liberate the very forces of
life. Contact me now for a free
discovery audit at
c.pantidos@brandaviators.com
or by clicking on the icon: