Moderate In Using Research Findings

Please allow me to risk confusing you. I promise to then tell you why.
     Here goes:
     Researchers at National Chengchi University in Taiwan found that a happy consumer is more likely than a sad consumer to believe a retailer’s claim a promotional offer is high value. But this difference between happy and sad consumers is less pronounced when statements about the product being promoted are about attributes highly important to the consumer. The effect of the affect also is less pronounced if the consumer doesn’t plan to purchase the product soon or if the promotional offer initially strikes the consumer as being of low rather than high value.
     What does all this mean for you, the retailer? It means you should work to have happy consumers. But since you’ve less than absolute control over a shopper’s mood, present product attributes and benefits you find are highly important to that individual shopper. This is particularly important as the shopper comes close to deciding if the promotional offer is good enough to justify the purchase of the product.
     Well, why didn’t I just say that to begin with? Because I want to let you know about what behavioral scientists call moderating variables.
     In the Taiwan research, the value of the promotional offer was a moderating variable. The relationship between the mood of the shopper and the degree to which the shopper believed claims about a promotional offer depended on whether the promotional offer was initially seen by the consumer as high value or low value. For high-value offers, mood made a difference. For low-value offers, it didn’t make a difference. The advice to you can come across as, “It depends.”
     Making that “It depends” point is why I’ve risked confusing you. My task in writing RIMtailing posts, conducting seminars, and doing on-site consulting is to tell retailers what to do and what to avoid doing. I benefit you when I say why the tactics work. But that, too, must be straightforward.
     Because of the complexity of consumer behavior, the answer to many retailers’ questions is, “It depends.” That’s not what you prefer to hear. You want advice simple enough for you to remember and to communicate to staff.
     Still, when interpreting research findings on your own, be a moderator who teases out the moderating variables. This will help you reconcile what might appear at first to be contradictory recommendations for profitability.

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Take Occam’s Razor to Your Shoppers