Opine on Opportune versus Opportunistic

Your customers might not be able to reel off the distinction between opportune and opportunistic, but they’ll likely know it when they see it.
     Researchers at Edith Cowan University; Institute of Business Administration in Karachi, Pakistan; RMIT University; University of Tasmania; and Prince Sultan University analyzed reactions of a sample of Americans whose cars had been recalled for a safety repair and who completed the recall compliance process.
     The recall might be called opportune when offered by the marketer promptly after discovery of the problem and performed with minimum effort from the customer. It’s well-timed and suits the situation.
     But what if the dealer tries to sell the car owner additional repair services or products unrelated to the need for the recall? That can easily come across as unfairly taking advantage of the customer at a time the customer is disadvantaged. That’s opportunistic exploitation.
     In the study, perceived opportunistic recall management was measured with a degree-of-agreement scale completed by the study participants and composed of items like, “I think my car company is trying to make me buy new part(s) for my car,” “I think, through the product recall, my car company is trying to increase their brand awareness,” and “I think the product recall is a means of advertisement for my car company.”
     Analysis of the data indicated that a recall viewed as opportunistic deteriorated customer trust and loyalty along with lowering intentions to purchase that car brand in the future. The lesson for car dealerships, other retailers, and other marketers who process product recalls is to keep the focus on fixing the specifics which necessitated the recall.
     Then beyond this, the study results suggest two methods to reduce perceptions of opportunistic actions: 

• In communications with the customer, portray your commitment to ethical practices and social responsibility. 
• Allow ample opportunities for the customer to protest actions they consider to be exploitive.

     For these to work, though, consider them openings for two-way dialogues. Among the degree-of-agreement items used to asses the first method above was, “The communication makes me feel that the company is willing to respond to my specific questions about its ethical practices and corporate social responsibility initiatives quickly and transparently.” Among the degree-of-agreement items used to measure the second were, “I complained to the company” and “I blogged against the company.” Complaints and social media postings are prompts for conversation if you take the time to notice them.

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Call In Responsiveness to Product Recalls 

Maintain Store Distinctiveness in Ad Groups 

Cure Feelings of Retailer Betrayal

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Bundle Mandatory Socio-moral Surcharges

Airline passengers are painfully familiar with partitioned pricing for optional comforts, such as an additional charge for checking a bag, boarding early, or having extra legroom. Anecdotal reports verify that air travelers grumble about these fees.
     But what about when those additional charges are to fund socially or morally beneficial objectives and when the charges are mandatory? wondered a pair of Virginia Tech researchers. Examples include an environmental sustainability surcharge some Marriott hotels add to the room price, a fee to support fair-trade initiatives levied on Equal Exchange purchases, and an assessment by many restaurants to fund health care insurance for the employees.
     The specific question was whether consumer reactions are better if the bill is presented as a total amount with names of mandatory surcharges noted or if the bill is presented with partitioning of the item price and the itemized prices for any surcharges.
     The answer from analyses of the collected data is that the first arrangement is preferable. Fold surcharges into a total price and name the socio-moral cause without specifying the amount of the total attributable to it, such as, “price includes all taxes, fees, and carbon-offset surcharge.” The problem with the partitioned pricing presentation is that the consumer tends to feel the marketer is avoiding responsibility for the socio-moral cause by passing the charge on to the customer.
     The researchers identified three ways the marketer can use partitioned pricing with socio-moral causes while avoiding the negative impression: 

• Specify that the amounts collected are being forwarded to an entity outside the marketer’s control 
• Show how the marketer supports the socio-moral cause aside from collecting and forwarding the mandatory surcharge 
• Describe ways the surcharge collection benefits the consumer

     I can imagine a marketer using these techniques in circumstances ranging from wanting to show a lower price for the item itself to helping a diner more easily calculate the tip amount based on the price of just the food and drink.
     Partitioned pricing and corporate social responsibility are complex topics in consumer psychology, so take care not to overgeneralize findings. For example, these Virginia Tech researchers found that the problems with partitioned pricing hold only for socio-moral surcharges. With other mandatory surcharges, such as for shipping, partitioned pricing can be the better alternative.
     Then for a counterintuitive finding, consider the study showing how steeply dropping the price of a fair-trade item makes it less attractive to consumers.

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Fear Fair Trade Discount Promotions 

Externalize Surcharges in Partitioned Pricing 

Apologize via Corporate Social Responsibility

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Power Sales of Free-From Merchandise

A pair of researchers at University of Leeds and Nanyang Technological University points out that growth in the market for free-from products—such as lactose-free milk and fragrance-free face washes—has far outpaced the increase in rates of allergies. It appears that consumers’ choice of free-from products is due to something else.
     The researchers’ studies indicate the something else is a consumer’s perception they have low personal power, and this occurs because low-power consumers feel more threatened than do high-power consumers about the presence of potentially harmful ingredients.
     In one study, participants were asked to choose for use in their coffee between a dairy milk with its lactose and a lactose-free soy milk. Each participant also completed a scale to assess their sense of power. The scale included items like “I can get people to listen to what I say” and “If I want to, I get to make the decision.”
     Results showed that those reporting lower perceived power had a higher preference for the soy milk over the dairy milk. A parallel finding was obtained with another set of participants when purchase frequency of gluten-free foods was measured.
     In a companion study, degree of personal power was influenced rather than just measured. One group of participants were shown a poster that read in part, “You feel like you are a captain, because you are living in a world full of resources.” The second group instead read, “You feel like you are a servant, because you are living in a world full of restrictions.”
     Those reading the second poster were more likely than those in the first to select a fragrance-free face wash over a fragranced one.
     In these studies, people were excluded from participation if they said they had allergies.
     The nature of this preference for free-from products can be used by marketers to charge a premium for the items and to target advertising for free-from merchandise to consumer groups likely to be feeling low personal power.
     In all this, stay aware how advocating free-from can have unintended consequences. The U.S. FASTER Act which went into effect in 2023 requires notification if sesame is included in a packaged food or dietary supplement. In response, some companies added sesame to products that hadn’t included it and labeled it as such. It was risky to guarantee no traces of the seed. This result eliminated options for consumers seeking sesame-free foods.

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Spot Values by Asking Shoppers for Reasons 

Hang ’Em High for Power Deposits 

Highlight How High A Shopper’s Ready to Go 

Note If “Not” Drops Price Sensitivity

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Untangle Responsibility Attributions

In both the U.S. and UK, welfare payments to disabled citizens are a noticeable percentage of the government budget. Voter opinion about these payments counts.
     University of Michigan and Cardiff University researchers concluded that public support for disability benefits in Wales depends on the degree of responsibility placed on the person for their disability—in a way we might expect—and whether the disabled person is an immigrant—in a way we might not expect.
     Study participants considered the case of a man unable to work because of a brain injury. Depending on which of three groups the participant was assigned to, the brain injury was said to be either the result of childbirth complications, a high-speed motorcycle accident, or illicit drug use. For about half the number of participants in each of the three groups, the man was described as, “David is 28 years old and lives in Cardiff.” For the others, the man was described as, “Khalid is 28 years old and emigrated to Wales from Yemen with his family when he was 5.” Participants were asked to indicate how strongly they believed the man deserved some financial assistance from the government and how responsible they thought the man was for his disability.
     Overall, respondents in the drug use condition were most likely to say the man was responsible for his disability, and those in the childbirth complications condition were least likely to say that.
     Did David and Khalid deserve disability benefits? For those presented a David scenario, the childbirth group gave the highest ratings of deservedness, the drug group gave the lowest ratings, and the motorcycle group results were in the middle. But for Khalid, there was one intriguing exception to this same pattern: Respondents in the childbirth group gave lower ratings of deservedness than did those in the motorcycle group.
     After considering the full set of findings, including from a study in Scotland, the researchers attribute this exception to respondents suspecting Khalid’s family of exploiting a more generous UK welfare system by emigrating to Wales after learning of Khalid’s disability. This suspected responsibility for gaming the system was intertwined with perceived responsibility for the brain injury, and the responsibility of Khalid for his actions was intertwined with the responsibility of Khalid’s family for their actions.
     To effectively assess and change public opinion, attend to intertwined attributions which may not be apparent at first glance.

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Pin Responsibility in Unhealthy Food Choice 

Benefit Non-Disabled with Accommodations 

Construe Differences in Disability Duration

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Clear the Clouds from Switching Costs

Cloud video gaming—in which the processing is completed on a vendor’s computer servers—has been growing at a compound annual rate of about 75%, while the traditional video gaming in which processing is completed on the gamer’s local computer has been growing at a rate of less than 6%. The researchers at Durham University, The University of Leicester, and The University of Manchester who cite those statistics used semi-structured interviews and an online survey with gamers to analyze what factors are producing this difference.
     The data indicated a chief reason was how cloud gaming better enabled play of a broad variety of games across a broad range of circumstances. On the other hand, of the numerous factors considered in the study, switching costs exerted much less influence. In this context of video gaming, switching costs referred to the gamer needing to learn how to use the new platforms and accepting that many of the skills that had been mastered to use the old platforms would now be useless.
     Gamers in the study did acknowledge switching costs. One participant told the researchers, “I’ve spent years building up my game library and hardware setup. It would be hard for me to give it up.” Further, perception of higher switching costs was associated with higher reluctance to change from the traditional method. But the researchers say we should expect less influence of switching costs with a hedonic pastime like video gaming than we would with a parallel shift for a utilitarian project, such as storing company data on a vendor’s computer server and having processing completed on the vendor’s computer system. Variety is more important with the hedonic, consistency with the utilitarian.
     The lesson is to attend to the relative influence of switching costs while acknowledging that switching costs do always matter at least somewhat when we’re asking a consumer to make changes. Research findings from Santa Clara University, University of Maryland, and University of Texas-Austin indicate that switching costs exert a stronger influence than does customer satisfaction on whether a consumer will continue to patronize a retailer.
     To make a switch tempting, we’re wise to tell the target population about the ample benefits. People need to see the potential gains in order to put out the energy to form and maintain new habits. However, we too often forget about the importance to the shopper of the costs of the switch.

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Minimize Switching Costs 

Cost Past Customer Satisfaction 

Slant Referral Rewards Toward the Referred 

Tie Attribute Loyalty to Variety Seeking 

Anchor Frequency Estimates to Individuals 

Curtail Quantity Sensitivity by Here-and-Now

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Portray Relative Risk via Pricing Which Fits

Price can portray relative risk. In an Arizona State University and Tulane University study, groups of students were advised to get a flu shot. Some were told the price of the inoculation was $25, while the rest were told it was $125. So that the decision to get the shot wasn’t influenced by whether the student could afford it, all were told the fee would be reimbursed by health insurance. Each participant was then asked to estimate how likely it is they would contract the flu if not receiving the shot.
     The group told the shot cost $25 judged themselves as more likely to get the flu. The researchers’ explanation is that a lower price signifies a need for greater accessibility, and therefore a higher risk of nonuse. People are more likely to get the shot if the price is lower because it is more affordable, but also because the prospect of not getting it is scarier.
     Using a different scenario, an Aalborg University, University of Zurich, and Goethe University study produced a contrasting conclusion: A higher price portrays greater risk.
     These study participants perused an ad for a canyoning or a whitewater rafting adventure at a $100 price. Offered as an option was insurance to reimburse up to $100,000 in medical bills if the person was injured during the adventure. Some participants were told the price of this insurance was $9.90, while the others were told it was $79.90.
     The question in this study was not the likelihood of purchasing the insurance, but instead the likelihood of purchasing the tour whether or not the insurance was purchased. The answer is that people quoted a higher price for the insurance were less likely to indicate interest in purchasing the tour. Companion studies by the researchers gave evidence this was because those people considered the tour to be riskier.
     The effect is stable, but not large when calculated as an average across a group of people. Namely, for each 10% increase in the insurance price, the likelihood of purchasing the tour dropped by between 1% and 2%. A retailer could probably set a price for insurance which yields a substantial profit without the price sabotaging sales of the base item.
     Still, why isn’t that 1% to 2% higher? Perhaps because it’s an average for a group and within any group are adventurers who are attracted by signals of higher risk.

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Imply High Risk with Low-Price Sacred Goods 

Pain a Stimulating Picture 

Present Warranties as Insurance, not Assurance 

Externalize Surcharges in Partitioned Pricing

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