Connect Shoppers to Their Future Selves

Since you plan to be in business well into the future, you’ve an interest in your shoppers appreciating the longer-term benefits of their purchases. The challenge, say researchers at Columbia University and University of Chicago, is that shoppers may have trouble connecting to their future selves.
     Researchers at University of South Carolina agree. They offered a movie pass to theatre patrons one summer. For about half the patrons, getting the movie pass required completing a survey, which took about seven minutes. So that the researchers could compare time with money, a matching set of patrons were offered the movie pass for $3—no survey completion required.
     About half the tickets in each group were marked for use later that summer. The others were marked for use the following fall.
     For those who spent the $3, the percentage of fall ticket usage was the same as that for the summer tickets. People put out the money, and they were going to get their money’s worth. But among the patrons who earned their ticket by spending seven minutes of time, the season of usage made a big difference. People were significantly more likely to end up using the ticket if marked for the summer than if marked for the fall.
     When it comes to time, benchmarks like a change in the season go into defining benefits and value. Money spent in the summer can be redeemed for a reward in the fall, but time spent in the summer tends to lose value as the calendar rolls over to the next season.
     The Columbia/Chicago research findings indicate that a shopper’s connection to a future self can be strengthened by a retailer. In one study, graduating seniors were assigned to read a narrative in either of two versions. The first version described a graduating senior whose identity had been quite fully formed by the college experience. The second version portrayed the senior in the narrative as likely to undergo major changes in identity as a result of graduating.
     Those reading the first version were more likely to choose high-value gift certificates good after one year than did those reading the second version, who were more likely to choose lower-value gift certificates usable immediately.
     Talk with your shoppers about how what they will be in the future is largely shaped by what they are now. This will help them connect with their future selves.

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