If the end products are to be employed close to the body (drinking glasses, for example), shoppers might fear becoming contaminated. Carleton University researchers have identified two methods which ease such fears. One of these methods makes immediate intuitive and logical sense: Describe to shoppers how the recycled materials were cleaned as part of the production process. Study participants who were told, “The product will be thoroughly sanitized prior to shipping to customers,” had fewer concerns about disease contamination than were study participants not told this.
The other method may seem intuitively appealing, yet it also begs for explanation of the effectiveness: Identify the retailer. This consisted of announcing to shoppers the retailer’s name and showing shoppers the retailer’s photo. In the studies, a fictitious name and generic photo were used.
There was no implication that the study participant was friends with the retailer or even knew the retailer. Still, the explanation for this method working to ease fear is that the retailer was less of a stranger and people’s contamination worries are greater when dealing with strangers.
The researchers attribute these effects to our evolutionary-determined fear of disease. It’s relevant that the study was conducted with Canadian participants during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’d expect concern about contamination to be top-of-mind for consumers during such times. Still, the cultural impact of the pandemic was severe enough to leave a salience residue. Assuring consumers of thorough sterilization measures and personally identifying suppliers might now be vital components for a circular economy’s successful refurbishing, repurposing, and recycling.
A caution, though, comes from these Carleton University researchers’ reports of prior studies in which assurances of sanitizing and social similarity hurt acceptance. Emphasize cleanliness when consumers weren’t even thinking about dirtiness and the result could be that those consumers become more fearful. Accentuate the identity of the item’s supplier and the result might be that the impression that this person is not a friend outweighs the impression that they are not a stranger. Here, too, fear of disease contamination rises. Best that your assurances are more subtle.
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