P.74-75
Human beings are rarely aware of what motivate their actions. Regular consumers believe that they buy a car because they have concluded that is the best choice after a careful study of technical features from different models. They are fooling themselves. The real reason might be that a consumer's friend he financially respects bought one last week; or because the neighbours thought he or she could not afford a car like that; or maybe the colours match their college fraternity.
"Many of man's thoughts and actions are compensatory substitutes for desires which has been obliged to suppress. A thing may be desired not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because he has unconsciously come to see in it a symbol of something else, a desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself". A person might really want a car because it is a symbol of social position, an evidence of success.
P.77
It is possible to deal with potential customers in the mass through group formations setting up psychological and emotional currents that will work for them. There is no point in a direct attack if someone is interested in knowing more. Companies must provide this circumstance and context that will swing emotional currents to meet consumers' demands.
A whole country might be covered in ads with a text that says: "YOU buy a Mozart piano now. It is cheap. The best artists use it. It will last for years". These claims might be all be true, but they are in direct conflict with other manufacturers' claims and in indirect competition with other products, as everyone is competing for the consumer's money.
The question that remains is: why is the purchaser actually planning to spend his or her money on a new car instead of a new piano? Simple. Both are different commodities, locomotion and music. The customer buys a car because it is at the moment the group custom to buy cars. That is why is so important to create the circumstances that will modify that custom.
P.84
In order to make customers a company needs to understand not only their own business, but also the structure, personality and prejudices of their target audience.
P.86-87
Just like the production manager has to be familiar with every detail concerning the materials he is working with, the person in charge of a firm's public relations has to know the structure, prejudices and whims of the general public to handle their problems accordingly. People have their own standards, demands and habits. They can be modified but not contradicted. It is not possible to persuade a whole generation to wear long shirts. Although, working through leaders of fashion, people can be persuaded to wear a similar clothing piece. The public cannot be molded at will like an amorphous mass, or dictated to. Businesses and individuals have different personalities that can get along. The terms of this friendship can be mutually beneficial, and a business must explain itself, its aims and objectives to the public in terms that the public can understand and is willing to accept.
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