Our goals in life can be activated without our awareness. This unconscious activation of goals results in subsequent behavior aimed at achieving those goals (Uleman & Bargh, 2004). This means that we often are pursuing goals that are important to us, without knowing whether or why we are pursuing them. Marketing, since it’s inception with the advent of sexual reproduction (Reid & Halgren, 2009), has been using the recipe of unconscious goal activation to great success.
Today, our lives are inundated with elegant creative executions of advertising stimuli that tap into our most fundamental human needs to stir our emotional associations with brands. On SuperBowl Sunday, with a captive audience ready to be entertained, the table was set for the unconscious activation of consumer goals by brands looking to embed their message deeply in the consumer subconscious.
Two striking examples of the automatic activation of masculinity goals came from Dove and Dodge. These ads used very different tactics, but arrived at the same place – with a product fulfilling an unmet need state: feeling strength in your identity as a man. Let’s do Dodge first. Here is the clip in case you missed it.
[fve]http://youtu.be/2RyPamyWotM[/fve]
And here is the transcription:

Dodge Charger – Man’s last stand:
1: I will get up and walk the dog at 6:30 am
I will eat some fruit as part of my breakfast
I will shave
I will clean the sink after I shave
2: I will be at work by 8 am
I will sit through 2 hour meetings
I will say yes when you want me to say yes
I will be quiet when you don’t want to hear me to say no
3: I will take your call
I will listen to your opinion of my friends
I will listen to your friends opinions of my friends
I will be civil to your mother
4: I will put the seat down
I will separate the recycling
I will carry your lip balm
I will watch your vampire TV shows with you
I will take my socks off before getting into bed
I will put my underwear in the basket
And because I do this…
I will drive the car,
I want to drive.
Charger, Man’s last stand

The effectiveness of this commercial is actually an important commentary on the state of American Masculinity. This spot capitalizes on a state of emasculation in the American male population, tapping into a basic unmet male need of: feeling strength in your identity as a man. The examples in the spot ring true, because they are true. The spot is powerful because the emotions that men feel resulting from a lack of power (strength) are highly motivational. The spot finishes with a solution to the emasculated male’s feeling of lack of strength: the high revving engine of a masculine muscle car.
The subtle brilliance of this spot is that it does its work at an unconscious level while parading under the veil of conscious reason-based choice and humorous commentary on relationships and the office. In fact, the whole piece is a list of “reasons” why men should buy the Charger. Yet, the “reasons” are actually motivating behavior by unconsciously activating the goal of pursuing strength in your identity as a male, and stimulating the emotion associated with that goal to ultimately impact purchase propensity toward the Charger. The viewer leaves the commercial with the false sense of having conscious control over the influence what they just saw. If indeed the viewer generally resides in a state of emasculation, the spot activates a greater tendency to buy the charger by tapping that unmet fundamental male need.
Phew! Still with me? Want to see how Dove is different and yet the same?
Dove also realizes the importance of the basic male need of feeling strength in your identity as a man. Yet Dove, has taken a different tactic and, is targeting a different segment of the male population – not one that feels emasculated and utterly powerless in their relationship and work life, but rather, Dove is targeting a male that feels strength and power from the choices he has made in his life and wants to celebrate and reinforce his current feelings of strength in his identity as a man.
Here is the Dove clip:
[fve]http://youtu.be/IuexzKkMIDc[/fve]
And here is the transcript:

Dove- You are a man:
Get born
Get slapped
Now get to school
Be good at sports
Always look cool
Lift weights
Be strong
Know how to fight
Stay out late, but be polite
Now find a nice girl, who’ll say “I do”
Then have 3 kids, who look just like you
Rake the leaves from the hedge, and mow the yard
Honey, can you open this jar
If you hear a noise in the middle of the night
Go check it out, with a flashlight
You’ve reached a stage where you feel at ease
You’ve come this far, and it wasn’t a breeze
You can take on anything, of course you can
Because you’re a man
Now that you’re comfortable with who you are, isn’t it time for comfortable skin
At last, there’s Dove for men
Introducing Dove, Men plus Care
A new range of body and face wash
Be comfortable in your own skin

Now that is some great unconscious activation of masculinity goals! This piece uses the galloping “lone ranger” theme as its soundtrack, thundering through the accomplishments and feel good moments of a man’s life and heightening the emotion through the combination of memories and music. The Dove piece is actually tapping into the same fundamental male need state as the Dodge spot, but is coming at it from a different motivational angle. Namely, the Dove spot is using a “promotion focused” motivational trigger, while the Dodge commercial is using a “prevention focused” motivational trigger. (For definitions of promotion and prevention motivations see our blog: “Belichick, Rationality and Why the Colts are 14-1“)
The Dove commercial is about achievement and actively pursuing male strength-of-self goals. It activates feelings of joy and celebration. All of which are hallmarks of the promotion focused motivational state. The Dodge commercial, in contrast, is about avoiding the negative state of emasculation. It activates feelings of agitation (watch the camera zoom in on the face of the 4th man in that commercial again) and discomfort. All of which define the prevention motivational state. Importantly, each motivational state is effective in driving behavior, they simply use different emotions to get there.
In sum, understanding the unmet fundamental need states of a target population, determining which motivational framework is most relevant in evoking the important emotions of the target, and crafting creative in a way that unconsciously activates the relevant goals and emotions, is the fundamental recipe for successful marketing campaigns that have the power to move markets. Whether we like the states of masculinity depicted in the Dove and Dodge commercials or not, the fact remains that these commercials have used this recipe to great success.