Did you know that we consume diet products because they act as agents of rejuvenation, social normalisers, creators of possibilities, ego boosters, loyal mates, master storytellers, personal liberators, and transformation tools? This pioneering research cracks the code of buying behaviour related to diet products and puts forward a framework for shaping brand strategy and for growing revenue.

1. (RE)DEFINING
DIET FOOD
BRANDS
THROUGH
HUMAN
FUNDAMENTLS

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 of the consumer, the
95% that really matters,
and makes it possible for
marketers to build
irresistible brands

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 diet
products are presented in a
summarised form in order of
increasing relative importance in
line with their power to influence
our buying decisions

13. CONNECTEDNESS: On
the first layer of
motivation, a diet can
intrinsically help us
“mirror otherness”.
Through it, we can
participate in the
collective obsession
with hiding blemishes
or idiosyncrasies that
might distinguish us.

14. To be ordinary is to be
normal, properly
presentable. All of us,
have the right to
participate in the
beauty dream. Products
that help us do this
become our mates. They
are “real”, down to
earth products.

15. JOIE DE VIVRE: On a deeper layer of
motivation, by embedding the vibrant
nature of diet in their narratives,
some of the most successful brands
claim the life boosting essence of
dieting for their own. Dieting helps us
focus on the “now” and, as we know,
stress rarely lives in the present
moment.

16. A lot of dieters feel happy with
their life today, and even
believe that their life starts
now. Most nutritious foods
tend to be foods that contain
delicious life forces.

17. A lot of fun is connected
with the tonic effect that
comes with switching to a
healthier way of living,
and for shopping for new
clothes.

18. SELF-EXPRESSION: More
significantly, diet products help us
become master storytellers. Our
bodies carry meaning. By
manipulating our body, as with
other social symbols, we express
our creative forces.

19. Diet products actually sell
because of their capacity to
make our character and
personality emerge

20. LIBERATION: On a deeper
level, embodying the diet
products’ capacity to free the
body from its unbearable
weight, some of the most
successful brands mark the
diet’s essence to liberate us
from the body’s boundaries
as their own territory.

21. As we’re easily bored, we
have a preference for
heroes who re-invent
themselves, and seek the
same for ourselves. We,
intrinsically, love to exploit
the latest innovations.

22. TRANSFIGURATION: Moving into
a more profound motivation,
diet products sell because they
act as self-transformation tools.
By changing our look in an effort
to transform our lives, careers,
families and destinies, we
become another person, not only
physically but also
psychologically.

23. As if a magic spell is cast over
our imperfect selves, our self-
worth is suddenly buoyant and
our ability to step forward into
the world with a smile and a
confident stride is radically
enhanced.

24. EMPOWERMENT: Since to survive
we need a body, some of the best
narratives of diet products help us
to keep our body competitive. From
the eternal struggle of the mind
against the body, of spirit over
matter, humans acquire meaning.

25. As the sense of accomplishment
exhilarates, we are reassured
that we can overcome all
obstacles, have the ability to
surpass any fears. Achieving
our diet objectives make us feel
strong and able to become
whomever we want.

26. SELF-PUNISHMENT: Refusing
food is both a rejection of self
and a fight for self, but as food
equals life, ultimately, refusing
food is refusing life

27. Dieting, as self-denial,
has always existed in
various forms of
subordination, to please
gods and bosses, to
replace parents’
pressure with self-
inflicted discipline

28. Placing ourselves under some
form of master, parent, boss, or
god, we feel a further degree of
comfort. We, ultimately, correct
ourselves before others do it for
us. Diets are not supposed to be
pleasant - otherwise they
wouldn’t fulfil the psychological
purpose of self-punishment.

29. BALANCE: Proceeding into a
deeper layer of motivation,
diet products sell because
they help prevent disease,
promising a diet which is
scientifically developed,
balanced to the last ounce.
This is dieting for the sake of
health.

30. A balanced diet helps
us balance ourselves
with the world

31. ATTRACTION: A deeper motive for
consuming diet products is their
promise to help us attract sexual
attention. A person's physical
characteristics can signal cues to
fertility and health. Attending to these
factors increases reproductive success,
furthering the representation of one's
genes in the population.

32. Deep down, we diet to
experience our body

33. CONTROL: Dieting helps us gain
control in one highly visible area
- when we might otherwise
appear powerless in every
other part of our lives. The
assumption is that, since our
body is our most personal
possession, if we can conquer
our body we should be able to
conquer anything.

34. Controlling the
demands of the
body gives a sense
of order with which
to view the outside
world and one’s
inner self.

35. Through dieting we dream of
controlling not only our body,
but our desires and fate. As we
are able to impose culture’s
shared fantasy on the body,
that which is viewed as the
official body, we do what is
expected of us in line with our
success.

36. SECURITY: On the innermost layer
of motivation, incorporating the
notion that good looking means
good in their narratives, the most
successful brands in the category,
claim the rejuvenating essence of
dieting for their own.

37. Dieting, we commonly
believe, does not bring us
only beauty but also new
or renewed health and
energy. It brings us a new
body.

38. Dieters, deep down search for eternal
adolescence. Every time we fit into a
smaller size of clothing, we feel
smaller, younger, reborn. Slimness,
biologically and in our mind, is
connected to youth and high
reproductive potential. That is why we
often prefer a slim body to a really fit
one which might scare others.

39. Self-denial, the promise of rewards and the
belief in miracles are essential characteristics
of any diet. Essentially, dieting is abstinence.
The religious motive for fasting is typically to
purify the body and the mind. Rising above
desire, and emptying ourselves of craving is
just another form of nourishment.

40. The thin body (i.e. the
non-body) is associated
with absolute purity,
hyper intellectuality and
transcendence of the
flesh.

41. 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

42. 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.

43. 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

44. 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

45. 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

46. 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

47. 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.

48. 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.

49. 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

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

51. (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

52. 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