Marketing Pain Avoidance Sells Well

It was Stephen King, I think, who said words to the effect that Life Should Be More Than Merely Pain Avoidance. At least, I think it was Stephen King...and my apologies if I have misquoted him.

Anyway, who-ever said this was a noble soul indeed and kudos are due for even thinking up the concept. This statement really is the mark of a one in a billion human - one who thinks outside of our basic survival instincts.

We all know and practice the basics of survival every day of our lives. They are shelter, food and water. These are all basically pain avoidance.

Shelter stops the elements hurting us. Food stops hunger and near death hurting us and water stops microbes from hurting and destroying us, apart from maintaining a few other minor necessities including kidney function.

The bottom line is; the basics are pain associated and anything that grows out of that is also pain associated. We spend our entire lives avoiding pain.

Want to sell something? Easy...just target the brain centre and emotions that deal with pain avoidance.

Even if the product is bad for you...you will buy it, if it suggests the easing of pain.

Junk food sellers have mastered the art to perfection. These days they even have a nice sounding name for donuts, cream-filled sponge cake, heart-stopping deep fried chicken and hamburgers. They call it COMFORT Food.

Comfort evokes nice thoughts. Eating comfort food therefore soothes the emotions and makes us feel good. How comforting this will be when you are over-weight and diabetic is something to worry about later....and by then someone will have some product to sell to ease the pain of over-induging in pain avoidance.

Here's another grand example of selling that targets pain avoidance. This is the nice term that has become popular for shopping: RETAIL THERAPY.

Once upon a time, if you needed something, you went to the shop and bought it. If you did not have ready cash, you saved for it and one day brought home the prize.

How boring! These modern marketing days have taken the bore out of shopping. They call it therapy. Therapy must be good for you - right? Therapy is something you do to make yourself feel better about about yourself.

Therefore retail therapy is shopping to feel good about ourselves. I feel pain - therefore I shop. I feel pain so I spend money. Later I will feel pain because I am broke and I cannot feed the children. BUT that's OK. By then someone will have come up with a pain avoidance product that will ease this pain too.

Indugling feelings and emotions are all in reality, selling to the anthithesis of pain. Take nostaligia, for example. This is a huge player in the consumer market. As Patricia Winters Lauro recently pointed out in The New York Times , where she discussed the use of old characters in the Planters Mr. peanuts campaign - "Reinventing old ad characters allows brands to get some publicity while capitalizing on nostalgia."

We have all experienced nostalgia. Even the Bad Times seem Good when we look back over the years of our lives. Nostalgia is an escape from the present. The present hurts. The present is a time when feelings of pain are raw, so we escape in nostalgia. We indluge in pain avoidance, see good ol' Mr peanuts, buy it, eat it and digest some more comfort food.

So - here it is. Pain sells. Target your product or service to meet a basic psychological need to avoid pain and you have a hot product. I suppose any marketer could just as well try this tactic.....

Buy these hot pain avoidance products. They will sooth your life and ease the pain of x y z
GET PAIN RELIEF NOW - FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF!