Sunday, March 11, 2012

Blanket the Cold with Romance

When your shoppers are feeling cold, offer them a little romance.
     Researchers at University of Colorado-Boulder and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology found that study participants who drank cold tea were more likely than those who drank warm tea to subsequently choose a romance movie over other sorts of movies. Similarly, when another set of study participants were asked to sit in a room that was cold, this increased the tendency to select a romance movie.
     Next, the researchers, wanting to plot out all the relationships between cold and romance, matched the dates of customers’ DVD rental records with the data on temperatures around the time of the rental. Sure enough, when it was cold, there was a shift from the horror flicks toward the romantic ones. I guess the enhanced chances of getting a bear hug when watching the creature features wasn’t enough to compensate for the shivers up the spine.
     The researchers note the connection between love and warm feelings in our songs and poems. When people feel cold, they like to be blanketed with romance. However, the connection for consumers seems to be strongest at a subconscious level. If the study participants in the cold room or with the cold tea were asked to think about how comfortable they were with the temperature, the preference for romantic movies pretty much disappeared.
     Researchers at Roma Tre University and Columbia University asked, “What’s the relationship between a movie viewer identifying with an actor in the movie and the viewer rating the movie as excellent?” Toward answering that question, they analyzed audience ratings of 440 movies nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award.
     The researchers predicted that the viewer’s identification with a leading star the same gender and around the same age would increase liking. But after analyzing the data, the researchers found they’d been wrong. What made a difference was the viewer’s identification with relating to opposite-gender stars who were somewhat younger than the viewer. When the movie romanced the viewer, the viewer liked the movie.
     Okay, everybody out of the theatre and back to the store. Does this mean that each time a customer enters, you should flirt shamelessly or at least invite them to dance to your store’s background music? No, but it does mean you should romance the customer—professionally.
     Make an additional effort to reach out tenderly when baby, it’s cold outside.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

Click below for more:
Romance the Customer, But Professionally
Get on Consumers’ Calendars
Give Customers Assurance They Belong

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