This pioneering research redefines the way we market cosmetics. Artificial segmentations based on personality differences offer weak foundations on which to build brand strategies. To deeply engage us, a brand must have a solid inner architecture deeply rooted in the fundamentals of humanity. Beneath all the phantasmagoria of global marketing communication, lies order and rhythm, the source code of our human behaviour. Summarising the results of our research, this presentation analyses the fundamental motives underpinning consumer behaviour towards cosmetics and proposes a way to build cosmetic brands that engage people at a profound human level. Our fundamental human motives are like bare patterns in any language. Successful brands infuse the pattern, fertilising the basic forms, in a unique and profoundly human way, enabling people to experience deep patterns that make them feel alive. There is a direct correlation between our fundamental human motives, the most direct way to engage people, and the level of sales and profit. The efficiency of communication budgets is maximized when the authentic codes of the brand germinate the deepest motives driving sales and profit in the category. Today we have no excuse for saying that “we waste half of our advertising budget but we don’t know which half”. Above all, by satisfying the most fundamental of our human motives the brand is deeply humanistic in that it offers holistic, universal experiences that no longer satisfy some individual needs but the needs of the species.

1. WHAT MAKES
COSMETICS SELL

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. Using a multidisciplinary
approach, BRAND AVIATORS™
has captured and presents, for
the first time, the fundamental
human motives underpinning
our cosmetic buying behaviour
at the deepest levels of their
deployment …

4. … all the way from:
• their biological value
• to the neurosystems they engage
• to the cognitive operations and
psychological states they activate
• to the major social reinforcers they
cause and
• to the rich hierarchy of inherent
concepts they infuse into our
everyday life.

5. This methodology helps
marketers develop
Intrinsically Engaging
Narratives™

6. The motives are
presented in order of
increasing relative
importance in line with
their power to influence
our buying decisions

7. PLAYFULNESS: On an initial
layer of motivation, cosmetics
offer a tonifying, uplifting,
vital experience. Cosmetics
constitute one of the means
which enable us to reshape
nature into a flamboyant life.

8. EXPERIMENTATION: More
significantly, cosmetics favour self-
experimentation accompanied by
the possibility of a mind-opening
experience. We are beautiful only
if we are free to express our inner
beauty. Cosmetics reinforce the
feeling of independence and even
represent freedom from the very
dictates of nature, the way nature
shapes us.

9. At the heart of beauty
we find novelty.
Beauty is intrinsically
rare. Since the dawn
of history, individuals
have persistently
searched for
ingredients that are
unknown to others.

10. SOCIABILITY: On a
deeper layer of
motivation, cosmetics
are successful because
they build our public
self and make us feel
accepted. Cosmetics
become our intimate
allies.

11. In our collective fantasy,
by connecting with
something beyond our
own individuality we
become infinite

12. SUBVERSION: Beauty asks to be
destroyed. Its destruction makes
others feel alive. Humans make
themselves desirable in order to
attract and be sacrificed.

13. Embodying the insolent, and
destabilizing essence of
cosmetics into their narratives,
some of the most successful
brands help us fight fears,
outsource anxiety, express
denial. Cosmetics make us feel
we do whatever we can to
reverse time, even through pain
and suffering. No cross, no
crown.

14. SELF-DEFENCE: Cosmetics
protect us not only from
environmental aggression,
but everything that is
lurking around the corner.
Humans need to feel
nourished physically and
emotionally, day and
night.

15. SENSE OF WHOLENESS: As in our mind,
outer beauty starts from inner beauty, we
feel that by helping us take care of our
beauty cosmetics support our personal
philosophy and internal balance when
everything else around us is chaotic.
Expert products, technology, know-how
and technical expertise provide us with a
sense of peaceful serenity. In using science
to acquire balance and harmony, we
connect with our body and revive our
soul.

16. DESIRABILITY: On a deeper
level, cosmetics help us to
be desirable, to fulfil the
biological purpose of
beauty which is to attract

17. SELF-EXPRESSION: Cosmetics
are a mechanism for
reinventing oneself on a daily
basis. Daily re-creating
beauty is just another
manifestation of our eternal
urge to fight destruction
through creation. This search
to capture transient perfection
and make it a part of oneself
gives us a sense of
authorship.

18. SELF-ESTEEM: More
substantially, we buy
narratives that promise self-
improvement, favour our self-
sufficiency and enable us to
live up to our potential. As our
self-sufficiency is reflected in
how we interact with others,
when we feel attractive we
feel powerful. The ego
becomes embodied.

19. Throughout time beauty has
aroused admiration and has been
connected with the effort for self-
actualisation. In everyday reality,
we become the efficiency of the
products we use.

20. CONTROL: Throughout history
humans have tried to control the
environment and impose their
own conditions upon nature,
starting with their own body. In
taking control of our look and
our emotions, we feel that we
are gaining control of our
destiny.

21. Beauty itself is a capital asset
and we need to maximize its
market value. Ultimately,
cosmetics promise to make us
look like gods and goddesses.
We are constantly obsessed
with the fear of missing out
on any potential.

22. REASSURANCE:
Helping us restart
every day, regenerate
and invigorate
ourselves, the use of
cosmetics represents a
profound denial of
death on a daily basis.
To feel attractive is to
be alive.

23. TRANSFORMATION: On the
innermost layer of human
motivation, beauty is
seductive and hypnotizing.
Seduction is life itself, an
effort to deceive,
outmanoeuvre, manipulate,
to incorporate our
environment.

24. Cosmetics help us
change while
remaining the same.
Miraculously, we do
feel changed, we do
become different
people. Our ordinary
life is transcended.

25. Beauty, the alchemic union of
opposites (according to
Surrealists), includes the moments
and acts of unveiling itself. When
using cosmetics, it is as if a magic
spell is cast over us, imperfect
creatures. Our self-worth
suddenly becomes buoyant and
our ability to step forward into
the world with a smile and a
confident stride is radically
enhanced.

26. This map illustrates
the way some
major cosmetic
brands are
positioned in the
consumers’ mind

27. Successful brands
coherently express
the fundamental
human motives
driving their
category

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

29. (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 activities

30. My mission is to help clients
around the world build
brands that liberate the very
forces of life. Contact us now
for a free discovery audit by
clicking on the icon: