Did you know that we prefer fast food restaurants because they act as kindergartens, realms of happiness, epitomes of efficiency, and substitutes of home? Did you know that we consume fast food because it promises stability, immediate reward and infinite gratification, freedom from parental control and the intimidating presence of waiters, subversion of local cuisines, table manners and cultural traditions? Did you know that we prefer fast food because it acts as form of democratisation, the ultimate body food and delectable pleasure? This pioneering research cracks the code of buying behaviour related to fast food and puts forward a framework for shaping brand strategy and for growing revenue.

1. (RE)DEFINING FAST 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

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 for buying fast
food are presented in a
summarised form in order of
increasing relative
importance in line with their
power to influence our
buying decisions*

13. LIBERATION: On an initial
layer of motivation, we
buy fast food because
choosing the time, place
and type of food we eat
is liberating. Fast food
restaurants can provide a
meal within seconds. Fast
food represents freedom
from parental control and
gives liberty to behave as
one wills.

14. One of the local rites of passage
globally is the first time
neighbourhood children venture
into a fast food restaurant with
their peers, sans parent, proudly
ordering, paying and tipping

15. DISOBEDIENCE: More significantly, by
embedding the destabilizing character of
fast food, some of the most successful
brand narratives spur us to express our
ungovernable nature. They are based on
the key characteristics of eating fast
food which are speed and radical
informality.

16. Fast food is based on the
immediate satisfaction of
our craving for food even
at the expense of any
other of the priorities of
the moment

17. In our preference for
fast food, we go against
the order of things,
against what seems to
be right. If something is
characterised as
forbidden, we want it
more

18. PERFORMANCE: On a more
profound level, some of the most
powerful narratives that make
fast food sell reassure us of our
self-worth and our capacity to
accomplish. A key reason we
choose to eat fast food is the very
fact that it is fast. Eating is a task.

19. By dining we fuel our body
with energy. Exalting the
performance aspect of food
and the restaurant business,
fast food restaurants
epitomise efficiency. In
substance, they are places
that sell time, not food.

20. PLEASURE: On a deeper level,
incorporating the interactive and
total synesthetic experience
offered by a fast food restaurant
involving all our 5 senses, some
of the most successful fast food
brands mark the hedonistic
essence of fast food as their own
territory. Food is always a
delectable pleasure.

21. The word “Love” used in
fast food advertising is
powerful. Neurobiologists
have demonstrated that all
types of love, that of mother
to child, sexual love,
brotherly love, the kind
given and the kind received
all spring from one and the
same source, the love for
our children.

22. CONNECTEDNESS: When we visit a fast food
restaurant, we become one of many who are eating
the same food, receiving exactly the same service,
using exactly the same tableware, and space, and we
take something of that experience away with us
when we leave. Even if we eat alone, rather than
being solitary, we feel connected within a network.

23. In a fast food restaurant, we
are not even required to be
social. We live the
democratising experience of
waiting in line and the
freedom from competitive
banqueting. We order directly
from the chef whose
individuality is negated by the
uniformity of the product. In a
fast food restaurant, we do
not just consume commodities,
we have a relationship.

24. CARE: Proceeding into a deeper layer of motivation, some
of the most successful narratives that make fast food sell
embody the capacity of restaurants to simulate our home,
to be a home substitute. The real or symbolic atmosphere
of love, warmth and trust increases the appetite.

25. PLAYFULNESS: Some of
the most successful
narratives promoting fast
food encourage us to
seize the moment. A large
part of going to a
restaurant and especially
to a fast food restaurant,
is impulse, entertainment,
fun and celebration

26. SECURITY: On the innermost
layer of motivation, we
clearly find our primal need
for reassurance. In substance,
fast food restaurants are
kindergartens. As soon as we
enter we experience a state
of oblivion. Everything is
designed to promise
predictability, immediate
reward and infinite
gratification.

27. Children love to place
their own orders,
look over the counter
and eat food that
appeals to them in an
environment that is
similar to their
playgrounds, full of
action and simple
processes

28. There are no intimidating
waiters. The menus are
simple. Fast food is fasting,
abstaining from food. In the
deliberately standardised
stores there is an abundance
of shiny surfaces.

29. Fast food restaurants exalt the
essence of restaurants with
the least involvement: They
are places with comforting
rituals. Diners feel this
warmth. They come in empty
and leave full, with a warmth
and glow in the abdomen.
One can eat and drink with
the only limit being the
capacity of the stomach. The
dream of abundance has
finally become reality.

30. 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

31. 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

32. 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.

33. 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

34. 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

35. 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

36. 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

37. 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.

38. 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
used by multinational companies
today. Brands and concepts
developed through The Wheel
Of Motives™ are heartfelt, and
profound.

39. 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

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

41. (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

42. 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:
BRAND AVIATORS™
Kemp House, 152-160 City Road, London EC1V 2NX
+44 (0) 203 693 3933