Bag Consumers with Future Images

Stanford University psychologists said some young adults are no more motivated to save for retirement than to give money to a stranger. This is because those young adults view a self in the distant future to be like a stranger. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the psychologists were even able to identify which area of the brain is involved: Consumers who plan less well for the distant future show distinctive activity patterns in the rostral anterior cingulate.
     Acknowledge such individual differences in consumers. At the same time, don’t discount your ability as a retailer to change these patterns. When I start throwing around terms like “rostral anterior cingulate,” it might seem a retailer interested in having consumers think about their future can’t exert much control. Shoppers either have it set in their brain physiology or they don’t.
     It turns out, though, that is an oversimplification. In follow-on research, a team from New York University-Stern, Stanford University, and Microsoft Research showed adults digitally-altered photos of what they’d look like decades later—with jowls and bags under the eyes. A parallel group of study participants were not shown the aged self-images.
     The study participants were then asked to allocate $1,000 among four options—buying a nice gift for somebody special, planning a fun event, putting the money into a checking account, and investing in a retirement fund. Those exposed to the photos of aged selves allocated nearly twice as much of the $1,000 to the retirement fund as did those not shown the aged selves.
     Maybe those shown the aged photos promptly decided, “I’d better put a bunch of money away for when I get old and need cosmetic surgery to eliminate the bags and jowls!” Or maybe it was no more than a prompt to think acutely about the decades ahead. In any case, the tactic effectively connected consumers to their future selves. The researchers report that an adaptation of the method is now being used by Merrill Lynch in financial planning with clients.
     Columbia University and University of Chicago research also indicates a shopper’s connection to a future self can be strengthened by a retailer. Participants who, in the studies, were coached to think about how what they will be in the future is largely shaped by what they are now became more likely to choose high-value gift certificates good after one year than lower-value gift certificates usable immediately.

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

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Connect Shoppers to Their Future Selves