Did you know that cigarettes act as the ultimate proof that death can be beaten, formidable organisers of time and linear integrators, life’s common denominator, mood regulators, promoters of self-possession, cognitive shifters, actuality filters, event distancers, suspenders of reality, promise of pleasure never satisfied, expressions of freedom especially in the face of death, forms of resistance, symbols of revolutions, universal connectors, illusions of stability, inducers of optimism, purgatory fire, self-reconciliators, loyal companions, the perfect tools of representations, thought stimulators, instruments of (tele)communication, master storytellers, rites of celebration, activity generators and time encapsulators?

1. (RE)DEFINING
CIGARETTE
BRANDS
THROUGH
HUMAN
FUNDAMENTALS

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. The motives for buying cigarettes
are presented in a summarised form
in order of increasing relative
importance in line with their power
to influence our buying decisions

13. PLAYFULNESS: Why do we
smoke? On an initial level of
motivation, smoking is a
playful activity, a mood
enhancer, a minor celebratory
rite. Smoking helps us to focus
us on the immediate reality
which is life. We smoke to
capture and exalt life.

14. PROTECTION: More
significantly, what makes
cigarettes sell is that while
we smoke we feel
protected from a sentiment
of an internal or external
danger.

15. Smoke is one of the
protective screens we
conveniently use to
distance events, to
filter them through

16. CONTROL: Embedding the capacity
of smoking to act as a formidable
time organizer and linear
integrator, some of the most
successful brands allow us to
punctuate our life, to rhythm our
actions and conversations. We
experience the duration of time
and life in fractions that we impose
on ourselves.

17. The reiterated aspect of smoking
introduces a permanence on
which the smoker constructs
his/her everyday life. Adjusting
their nicotine intake to
environmental demands, the
smoker introduces a mechanism
into his/her life which permits
him/her to fluctuate arousal in
order to feel in control of the
situation.

18. TRANSFORMATION: Cigarettes
suspend reality to introduce a kind
of transcendental experience.
Cigarettes make time pass quickly -
explaining why waiting periods
almost automatically stimulate the
desire to smoke.

19. Capturing our subjective time is one
of the ways cigarettes make us feel
able to manipulate the forces of the
universe. Smoke acts as an
instrument of (tele)communication, a
device which conceals and raises
the smoker above his/her body.
While our character expands, we
also breathe in and interiorise the
world around us.

20. INTELLECTUALITY: Moving a step
closer to the motives that govern
the category, what makes
cigarettes sell, is their ability to
solve contradictions. There is
evidence that smoking can have
positive effects on sustained
attention, confirming the assertion
of smokers that smoking enables
them to think and concentrate.

21. Cigarettes help us
concentrate the
movements of our mind
and stimulate the
primary process of
thought. In many ways,
cigarettes trigger
contemplation and
encourage a
philosophical mood.

22. PLEASURE: What
makes cigarettes
sell is the infinite
and violent passion
they instigate.

23. Smoking a cigarette is a truly
multisensory ritual. The lips and other
tissues of the mouth are delicate and
sensitive zones, the first experiencing
part of the body in infancy.

24. In the real smoker, the eyes,
stomach, lungs, fingers, ears and
mind also smoke. Smoking’s
natural rhythm ends with an
exhaustion but its satisfaction is
temporary, it leaves the smoker
always unfulfilled, preparing
the way for the next one.

25. EXPRESSION: On a deeper
layer of motivation, we
smoke to express our
subjective individuality

26. The way we smoke is
usually characteristic of
our whole personality

27. The brand of cigarettes we
smoke is always visible to
everyone. Along with the
mobile phone, the packet of
cigarettes we always have with
us is a sure sign of the kind of
people we are.

28. CONNECTEDNESS: Going into
a deeper layer of motivation,
cigarettes are so successful
because they readily lend
themselves to reciprocity,
unity, sharing and belonging.

29. We can more or less address
anybody and ask them for a
cigarette. And most will offer a
cigarette along with a lighter as
a response - fire itself has
always been a focal point of
social cooperation. Not to give a
cigarette to someone who asks
for one is rude. Sharing a
cigarette helps us exculpate
other less straightforward
actions making us feel honest
and generous.

30. LIBERATION: Proceeding into a deeper
layer of motivation we smoke to
demonstrate our freedom, while the
round and healthy future is
postponed. When we lose all the fear
and understanding we have nothing
to lose, we are no longer afraid of
anyone or anything; especially free in
the face of death, we gain everything
in this short time frame.

31. A cigarette helps us break
from the normal flow of life
inviting us to travel in time.
Smoking liberates: it relieves
the pressure on our chest just
like after we have cried.
Above all, experiencing risk is
a significant drive in smoking.

32. SECURITY: Moving closer to
the dominant motives of the
category, smoking is a ritual
through which we connect
with ourselves and demand
provision against chance,
and can be compared, in a
way, to the regenerative
ritual of prayer.

33. The smoker constructs an
individual dimension of space-
time, which is familiar, constant
and reassuring, as opposed to
a less known, less controlled
environment. This domain that
substitutes for the universe,
gives, through the illusion of
stability, a form of resistance
to time.

34. Smoke, nicotine and the
repertoire of physical motions
and manipulations of smoking,
quickly relax our body and
transform us into patient people
when we most need it – i.e. when
we’re anxious or expecting
results.

35. DEFIANCE: The masochistic
motives in which we
deliberately hurt ourselves
are significant in smoking.
Danger is part of its appeal.
As it is exactly this danger
that we want from smoking,
prohibition makes cigarettes
more desirable.

36. We use death pre-
emptively in small doses
as a way of countering
anxiety - the ultimate
anxiety is about death

37. In consuming cigarettes and
appropriating their meanings,
we emerge renewed from
destruction, we become
nothing in order to leap
forward. We go through hell
to remain humans, to remain
alive with dignity. Ultimately,
smoking is a gesture of
defiance, a form of rebellion. It
is no accident that most
revolutionaries were great
smokers.

38. EMPOWERMENT: On the
innermost layer of human
motivation, offering the
illusion of continuous action,
cigarette smoking makes us
feel that we triumph over
adversity and become aware
of our powers. Because
dopamine enhances our
alertness, a cigarette gives the
perception of improvement on
performance.

39. We smoke to prove our
competency, energy,
vigour and potency, to
look older, to look
younger. Cigarettes are
masks that conceal fear
behind the aggressive
gestures of the ritual.

40. The gestures rebuild our egos
and self-confidence. Through
cigarettes we fortify ourselves
for more effort potency, we feel
successful, high achievers,
daring. Breaking from the
normal flow of life, one can
imagine a world full of
possibilities.

41. With each cigarette, the smoker beats
death by looking it in the face in a
momentary and infinite connection to
the universe. By smoking, we live after
our death many times. In smoking one
cigarette after another we prove that
the invincible destroyer is conquered.
With the last cigarette, we feel our
power. We beat harsh life, we go
further, we last longer. Accordingly, the
continuous effort to give up smoking
can give a purpose to life. It keeps us
busy.

42. Cigarettes embody
speed and a hectic life
style. In fact, more than
other forms of tobacco,
cigarettes best capture
the rhythms of cities
which are “riding”
rather than “walking”
habitations.

43. 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

44. 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.

45. 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

46. 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

47. 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
wanted from the category

48. 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

49. 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.

50. 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.

51. 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

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

53. (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

54. 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