Abstract the Importance of Luxury Buy Source

Where a shopper buys a used luxury brand item influences what impression the shopper will then have of the luxury brand and company.
     Researchers from Liverpool John Moores University, Oxford Brookes University, and Saitama University documented this with scenarios involving purchase of a second-hand Rolex watch. Some study participants were asked to imagine conducting the transaction at a prestigious department store specializing in authentic luxury watches and certified as an official Rolex reseller. For other study participants, the setting was instead described as a generic reseller of pre-owned timepieces, located within a jewelry and pawnbroker store. Compared to those in the first condition, those in the second condition subsequently reported more negative images of the Rolex brand and company.
     Although this finding might be expected and so add little to our understanding of consumer psychology, the researchers’ companion study revealed an insightful explanation with action recommendations for either type of retailer: Shoppers buying at an official luxury retailer are thinking at a more abstract desirability-related hedonic level, while those buying at a generic retailer are thinking at a more concrete feasibility-related utilitarian level. Examples of items on a questionnaire used to assess abstract versus concrete included: “Acquiring a reliable timepiece” versus “Buying a watch from a store”; “Understanding the watch’s quality” versus “Reading the watch’s specifications & features”; and “Maximizing value for my money” versus “Discussing price with the seller.”
     In addition to suggesting the retailer address these distinctions in the framing of the resale transaction, the researchers advise the prestigious certified luxury retailer to use abundant pleasurable adjectives (“This watch is beautiful on you”) and the generic retailer to emphasize practical customer actions (“This watch is ready to wear”).
     For the luxury brand company, an implication is to protect brand image by establishing a process for certifying resellers and then encourage shoppers to purchase from a certified dealer. Certification standards could involve maintaining high-end selling spaces, protecting against carrying counterfeit items, offering brand-underwritten warranties, and providing abundant after-sales customer support.
     An additional angle on the issue of reseller certification is suggested by a set of Yale University studies, which found that lower serial numbers in a limited-edition release of otherwise identical items hold greater value for purchasers. The explanation is that a lower number seems closer to the source. Similarly, the closer association of a certified versus generic reseller places the certified retailer closer to the brand source.

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Close the Sale Close to the Source 

Book Tours of Your Esteemed Merchandise 

Use Loneliness to Sell Used Merchandise

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Buttress Source Memory by Opining

Accurately recalling the source for information they’ve encountered helps our targets of persuasion evaluate the validity of the information. A small survey by researchers at IESE Business School and UCLA supported the value in recognizing this: About 95% of respondents to the survey said they’d sometimes been unable to remember the source of information they’d learned, and among those who reported this had happened, about three out of every four also replied that it had been important to them to be able to remember.
     In their main study, the researchers went on to show how information type makes a difference in source memory accuracy. Specifically, accuracy is higher for opinions than for objective facts. The researchers’ explanation is that an opinion provides additional information about the source, and this fuller profile enhances the mental association between what we’ve learned and from where we learned it.
     There are circumstances in which raw facts are more persuasive than fact-filled stories, However, an implication of the research finding is to provide information to targets of persuasion in the form of opinions based on the facts rather than just raw facts. In this way, the targets will be better able to remember the source and, if they trust the source, to trust the information.
     The researchers note that source memory becomes weaker as we age because of general associative memory deficits. The implication here is that presenting opinions rather than just the facts can be especially useful with the elderly.
     Findings from the University of Lethbridge and University of Alberta indicate that the persuasive impact of an opinion can be further enhanced by infusing a review with swear words. In one of their studies, a product was rated by readers more positively when the review contained a swear word as a qualifier (“the dishwasher is damn quiet”) than when an equivalent genteel word was used (“the dishwasher is super quiet”). Similarly, use of a swear word as a qualifier in a negative review leads to the item being rated more negatively.
     The researchers say that swear words’ effectiveness comes from challenging a taboo. Further, the swear word usage amplifies both the description of item quality (“damn boring” is significantly more boring than “darn boring”) and the feelings of the reviewer (“I found it to be damn boring” is a substantially stronger reaction than “I found it to be darn boring.”) The dual impact multiplies the persuasion power.

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Project Plain Facts About Philanthropy 

Remind Seniors How You Informed Them 

Damn Positive Item Reviews 

Estimate Imprecisely When Harboring Doubts

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Project Plain Facts About Philanthropy

By immersing readers or listeners into characters and plot, a story—even a brief story—is usually more persuasive than just presenting the facts. This is why persuasion agents are advised to weave the facts into a tale for objectives ranging from making a sale to changing a mind.
     Still, storytelling can fall flat or even dissuade if the audience decides they’re being unfairly manipulated. This effect was explored by researchers at University of Mannheim, University of Hamburg, University of Applied Sciences Dortmund, Baruch College, and Ruhr-University of Bochum in the context of a business telling the public about the business’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.
     Initiatives which go beyond an organization’s legal and regulatory requirements to assist others outside the organization’s ownership qualify as CSR activities. The beneficiary might be a company’s own employees, a local museum, or a nonprofit aiding domestic violence victims, for example. The central recommendation from the researchers’ studies would be to use a story when the beneficiary is the first of those, but not if it’s the second or third.
     The researchers’ explanation springs from a tendency for audiences to be skeptical about a business’s stories regarding CSR activities compared to stories about the business’s products or service. “What are they trying to gain economically by telling me they’re helping others in ways they’re not required to?” readers and listeners ask about the story. They’ll start thinking more about being persuaded than about the content of the story, erasing any advantage of the storytelling or even generating suspicions they’re being tricked by the indirect message and emotional embellishment of a story. This thinking disrupts purchase behavior and customer loyalty.
     The study results indicate this undesired sequence is less likely when the CSR activity is embedded in the business’s core functions—such as maintaining a childcare program for use by employees—than when peripheral to those core functions—such maintaining a school for disadvantaged children in a foreign country.
     Central to the researchers’ recommendations is the degree of trust the story’s audiences place in the business. The safest alternative is to avoid stories when describing CSR activities serving beneficiaries not central to the business’s core functions.
     Another approach is to monitor consumer trust, carefully maintain signals of business authenticity, and use stories about CSR results in those circumstances where trust is high. Remember that we started here describing the persuasive advantages of narrative transportation.

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Found Influence with Founders’ Stories 

Embed Politically Hot Facts in Personal Stories 

Tell Stories for Price Increase Acceptance 

Dedicate Marketing to Dedicated Authenticity

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Insinuate Insults into Influencing

Lots of people must consider the Carolina Hurricanes to be a bunch of jerks. You see, the popular t-shirts read “BUNCH OF JERKS” above the professional ice hockey team’s logo.
     The twist is that those t-shirts and other merchandise bearing the message were marketed by the team itself following the on-air insult from prominent ice hockey commentator Don Cherry. Sales of the merchandise yielded revenue of $875,000, according to the Carolina Hurricanes Chief Marketing Officer.
     Researchers at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, The University of Hong Kong, and Duke University analyzed this effect of a brand turning a profit by reappropriating insults hurled at it. The technique works, the study data indicate, when the usage projects brand confidence and a sense of humor. Consumers find both those attractive in persuasion appeals.
     Success also requires that the insult be perceived by those consumers as unjustified—so not jeopardizing the brand’s claim of confidence; petty—allowing the brand to harmlessly joke about it; and not issued by a vulnerable person—so the reappropriation is not interpreted as bullying.
     When these conditions are met, reappropriating the insult tends to work out better than ignoring the insult, denying the insult, or apologizing to the insulter.
     Perceiving an insult as unjustified and petty may require understanding the broader context. Another example cited by the researchers of insult reappropriation is the posting in a Penzeys Spices store window of a sign reading, “‘Terrible overpriced product’ D. Trump.” The backstory here is that the quoted insult by presidential candidate Donald Trump followed a September 2024 visit by Vice President Kamala Harris to a Pittsburgh outlet of the business owned by Bill Penzey, a vocal critic of Mr. Trump.
     As to the insulter not being viewed by consumers as a vulnerable person, holding political office isn’t always enough. It matters whether what’s being ridiculed is a characteristic of the politician which is in the politician’s control. In one study, French consumers were asked their intention to share a parody which ridiculed a characteristic of French President Emmanuel Macron. The controllable characteristic presented to some of the study participants was Mr. Macron’s arrogance. The uncontrollable trait presented to the other participants was Mr. Macron being married to an older woman. Mr. Macron had been widely derided for both characteristics.
     Participants were more willing to share the parody when the theme was the controllable trait. Mocking an uncontrollable trait aroused discomfort.

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Certify the Value of Certainty in Persuasion 

Joke Around to Facilitate the Sale 

Constrain Politician Parodies to Controllables

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Control Conspiratorial Thinking

Youth is by far the single most influential sociodemographic predictor of conspiracy beliefs.
     This conclusion from a pair of University of Ottawa researchers is based on their meta-analysis of 110 prior studies which measured the statistical relationship between a person’s age and their degree of conspiratorial thinking and then the researchers’ own analysis of this relationship among people living in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, South Africa, and the U.S. This collection of countries represents a range of political and cultural traditions.

     For their inquiries, the researchers defined conspiratorial thinking as efforts to explain causes of important events by placing blame on secret plots orchestrated by powerful actors. This general tendency has driven beliefs such as that climate change is a hoax and that a group of Satan-worshipping elites are running a child sex ring. There are instances when belief in a conspiracy is justified, but when it is not, the corrosive impact of conspiratorial thinking on our political and cultural dialogues begs questions about who succumbs.
     So why does age seem so central to conspiratorial thinking? The study data support three answers in comparing younger to older adults: 

• Young adults are more likely to express their political preferences via social protest, and social protest movements incorporate belief systems which cultivate conspiracies. These include accusations of injustice and suspicion of compromise. 
• Young adults are more likely to have low self-esteem, and adhering to conspiracy beliefs provides feelings of worth and power. 
• Young adults are less likely to believe their interests are supported by political office holders. This is because the office holders are often substantially older than the young adults. One result is distrust of political institutions.

     In reporting their conclusions, the University of Ottawa researchers highlight the limitations of their inquiry. This is a study of correlations, so although we’ve reason to believe that as people age, they become less likely to engage in conspiratorial thinking, we can’t definitively say aging, in itself, causes the decrease. In addition, the studies were cross-sectional, not longitudinal: People of different ages at one point in time were assessed rather than tracking the same people over the years to see what happens to their conspiratorial thinking.
     The questions of causation still beg for answers. Age counts, but the cause is probably a combination of factors. For now, in correcting dangers of conspiratorial thinking, let’s pay particular attention to young adults.

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Pattern Choices for Frightened Shoppers 

Spot Partisan Recall of What Never Happened 

Long for Longitudinal Looks at Seniors 

Enliven Influence by Viewing Life Scripts

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Recognize the Pervasive Impact of Emotions

What consumer task would we expect to involve less emotion than would making financial decisions? And for what job task would a worker depending on emotion be more likely to hurt than would screening loan applications? It is of note, then, that researchers at SP Jain School of Global Management, The University of Western Australia, University of Budapest, University of Southern Queensland, and Griffith University show evidence that loan officers’ decision making is influenced by emotions.
     In one study, all participants held an MBA in Finance and Accounting and had worked for at least two years in a business setting. They seemed qualified to evaluate loan applications.
     Each participant was given applications and asked to indicate how willing they’d be to approve the loan. The application’s financial information included the number of loans the firm had taken out in the past, how many of these loans were paid back on time, the judged ability of the firm’s cash flow to cover payments on the potential loan, and the value of the proposed loan collateral. These indicators were considered sufficient for the participants to rationally evaluate each application.
     Wait, there was more: In the top right corner of each loan application was a small image which contained no financial information, but had been shown in prior studies to portray a single emotion such as joy, fear, or anger.
     Analyses of the data collected from all this showed that loan applications including an emotionally positive image were more likely to be approved. Further, this effect was stronger for the male than for the female participants. The researchers attribute this gender difference to findings from past studies that men depend more than do women on visual information in decision making.
     A companion study, with a different set of people, measured each participant’s emotional reactions as they viewed the loan application. The reaction was measured by the participant’s self-report and also via galvanic skin response, which is a physiological indicator of emotion.
     Here, the men had higher loan approval likelihood for applications with positively-valenced imagery than did the women. For applications with negatively-valenced imagery, there was no significant gender difference.
     Together, the studies indicate that emotional reactions influence decisions in realms where non-emotional analyses might be expected. It also seems that images which trigger emotion can accentuate this effect, especially in men.
     Recognize the significant role of emotions in persuasion and use imagery for effectiveness.

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Appeal to the Heart 

Picture Misleading Consumers 

Borrow Content Analysis to Curb Loan Defaults

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